Try to go twenty-four hours without
uttering a single word of complaint,
a lifetime\'s worth of grievances held
in abeyance, swollen like a balloon
dangling above a child’s unsteady hand,
dreaded mumblings about traffic jams
or bruised fruit, the inexorable aging
of knees. Even clouds look less thrilling
when catalogued, their imperfect shapes
stacked in wistful comparison, or sighs
uttered about coffee’s bitterness, gone
now in the silence, every passing second
a tiny chisel shaping the conversation’s
sculpture anew, chiseling away the grime,
the complaints rubbing relationships raw.
Pause to see us unfurl like pages pulled
gently open in a book just waiting to
be read, devoid of complaint\'s scribbles
in the margins, each stanza standing
on its own, unadulterated and free.