I slept my way through school.
Dreamed of the languid days
Of summer while textbooks flew
In one ear and nestled inside.
I pretended to drive to work,
Where I wrote proposals
And gathered money for women
Who did not care about me.
Thoughts of rebellion,
Mutiny, reclamation and freedom
Coiled like snakes in the Delphi
Crouching twixt my eyes.
I could be someone.
I could be anyone,
According to cartoons,
That deserved to be someone.
I slept across the aisle,
Where she pointed poppy flowers
In my face,
And bid me breathe their scent deeply.
I was unconscious when my children were born.
Their small feet, pressed into ink,
Were like the buzzing of a streetlamp
Outside my window in the night.
I chewed rocks and counted sheep
When the world turned in its axis
And age crept alongside me,
Familiar like a lover.
I woke when I was old,
And my arms were a gun
That I pointed under my chin
And prayed for another chance.