My King
Published in How Can I Help You Today, Print Anthology
Sitting on the footstool in my kitchen, giving way to the I can’t and letting it settle into the base of my spine, allowing the joints to soften, signaling to my body I hear you, you can rest, except also you can’t, because it’s 5:53pm and we’re chest deep into the dinner realms without a spark of stovetop heat, or any movement that signals life is sustaining, not a single element awake except the cool lingering air from the refrigerator door opening and closing, and the freezer opening and closing, and the refrigerator again—bright heavy wings wafting this void, leaving me feeling nothing except dread and the inspiration to write something, anything, so I can escape this moment with a shred of productivity—my thumbs moving rapidly as the notion strikes my heart and widens my eyes, remembering the sensation of crinkling white bags in hand, the heated promise of soggy nourishment and the comfort of small metal-not-metal condiment packets that are never enough, though there will never be enough time to get my shit together and order something that my kids will eat, something that will fill them like it fills me, something that will relay the joy and dopamine and sanctity of a promise to Have Things My Way, and so I stare down my cold PVC nemesis that holds all our promise and all our decay, my partner, my enemy, I long to shut your doors and surrender to the sweet release of what I wish we had, the savory promise of what once was.
