fog

spent all morning fending off the heat, the hurt;
the cold-sweat bleeding through the soul, the skin, the shirt.
spent all morning in a single blink; my eyes sealed shut trying not to think -
spent all morning fending off the heat, the hurt.

numbers

six minutes to go and i
can't force myself to start, i have to
wait until the time is right.
it's longer than five and shorter than ten
and seven is sometimes okay but not now.
not now.
the clocks have all gone digital,
so i can't map out two and a half minutes anymore
unless i count,
i count,
i count the seconds while pouring out a glass of milk
and if i don't time it right it overflows
but i can't just turn it back.
i have to
wait until the time is right,
until the numbers add up,
and now it's four minutes to go and i've missed it.
i've missed
being free from numbers,
and maybe if i wait for three i can squeeze on through but
that means there's only two minutes that have passed
and it's not okay.
it's not okay, it's not
a matter of choosing to count
as much as some days it feels like the counting chose me
and i can't, i can't, i can't
just leave, come on, we're going to be late.
i can't
just stop in the middle of ten taps to the desk,
how many lines in this poem before i can leave,
how many lines must i force myself across
before i stop tallying them up in my fucking head;
i have to skip steps at work because there are fourteen of them
and it is one step short
of okay.
i am always
one step short
of okay.

my friend elizabeth - though we never call her such -

gave me quite the inspiration, though she never said that much.

if i lied, i could have kept you when you left me back in august,

but alas, instead i cried, and my friend told me it was honest.