Ode to Abundance

I’ve been looking on and on,

At heaps of pens and papers

Some cut up in halves and quarters, some intact like an uncredited money bill.

Crisp like the air that would enter my bedroom window,

If I ever bothered to open it.

Books I haven't read yet and scents I’ll never spray.

Trinkets that will never sit on the crest of my ears now that they have turned grey.

I wish for so much

Then I wish to throw it all away.

Catapult into a new person and leave it all here, it rots to stay.

Incense candles that I light on days when each thought is all-consuming and cannibalistic,

I watch the wax melt,

I dip my finger in it, wait for it to stiffen around my nail beds,

Feel the softness amidstthe bleakness. 

All my candles now have craters in them, but that’s okay

They never had much fragrance anyway.

I open drawers and business cards fly out,

“Sensitive care” tags and to-do lists,

All untended, each box unticked. 

I have so much to do, when will I do it?

I have much to keep, much to store, much to absorb.

Like an amphibian on the last day of rain,

I breathe it all. Water through my skin,

Inscribe it on my arms and torso- a manuscript.

But it’s still not enough,

Each drawer is still full, every cabinet has plenty-

-I had it, I became it, but it never went empty.

I open my bedroom window,

And look outside

The city is gawking at me with his blinding yellow lights.

I let the setting sun say goodbye to me, there's many lessons on the tip of her tongue, but she’ll bite it for now.

She doesn’t let me scathe.

She wishes to spare me.

I let her.

I think I should resort to finding joy, in the many things-

big and small. In my room, down the hall. Under the bed, on the table. In my heart, on your lips.

There are things,

many many of them.

But one day, there won’t be,

And when that day comes,

This abundance will be all that I long for.

Wrote this at a time when I felt like I had too much stuff to take care of. (in every way imaginable)

Photo Credits (Pinterest)