Free Verse, Year 2
In theory, it’s just memories holding me here in this place.
I’m free to get up and leave at any time. I can shut this file, and glance at the clock, sigh like I have somewhere I need to be, like this is just a stop on the way.
It isn’t though, there isn’t another appointment, for the first time ever I’m not late to be somewhere. This is the only place I have to be.
I said I wasn’t going to come here anymore.
Surely, there can’t be anything else to do, I’ve put all my pens back in the cup and stacked everything just so, just as one does when they’re over it. When it’s not appropriate to bring it up in conversation any longer, when the matter is considered closed.
Still I have this inability to shut it off, to go anywhere else, some herculean effort required to make my body rise from this chair.
I keep chewing at my thumbnail, which I never do anymore, not for a long time now, you’d be proud. Or say as much anyway, like I would know how you really feel. Add that to the list of shit I don’t know, it should be wrapping around the block by now.
I said sometime yesterday I wasn’t going to write long copy anymore, do the things that make it so obvious exactly where I’m going. I bring that same tired notebook, you know the one. I love the way it feels in my hands…
