Feeling Small and Important

As I lay in the clean Spring sheets of my some times shared bed thinking about things large and small, my hand slides over to the vacant side and I feel my lungs fill with a strange sense of duality. I tuck my hand under my body to assume the usual self-cuddled position and pull my knee up across the void, to both fill the space and know that I can. All at once I am relieved at the chance to sleep soundly alone, yet vaguely melancholic at the absence of you. I sigh and close my eyes trying to calm the restlessness I feel creeping in like a crack in the sidewalk. It moves slowly though, so there is no time to take root before my mind can pick a side. A sly grin inches across my face as I remember the last time I got to be the little spoon, tucked in your equally-debating crevasse. My back arches without permission (but I don't mind) into the memory of your thumb on my hip bone. I feel small and important, like a locket. Lockets have their secrets too, even if there is nothing in them when you open it. A whisper escapes. A moment. A sigh. A spoon. I drift off slowly, other small and important flatware compiling quickly in my head. Tomorrow I'll make room in the utensils drawer for them all (separated by commas to keep it organized).

On Repeat.

My mind rumbles, rambles, tumbles over what must be a million things.
The more wind it kicks up, the more it seems that tangled weed just rolls on through.
Rolls on through.
Rolls on over the same old song.
Its just like me to get new tunes and listen to a just few tracks on repeat.

Repeat.

I forgot to turn off the extra rinse on my cycle.
I guess this load will take a little bit longer.
I should take a load off while I wait.
Why carry such a heavy load.
I guess sometimes weight pressing down is just what you need.
Sinking into next to me, shoulders dropping just long enough to form deep divots, and make it so that when I reach over and he's not there, it feels like a warm set of clean sheets out of the dryer.
These sheets are cold when I wake.
I remember breakfast in bed, and smile of the days when that was frequent.
From outside the door an alarm sounds letting me know the cycle is done.
This load I'll remember to turn off the extra rinse.

No need to repeat.

Kicking With Purpose

Maybe it was just my mood, but today the city told some funny tales. While scouring the streets, I couldn't help but feel my difficult face scrunch beneath the faux-designer lenses propped on my Irish nose at every passing questionable public display before me.

There were the girls in shorts and heels, a fashion statement I'm not really on board with; and the ladies who weren't sure about just wearing just a dress so they sacrificed every bit of safety from heat stroke and wore pants too. Men in tweed suits mingled with boys in plaid shorts in the midst of Dupont Circle. Classic City Life Spring. However, none of this was as alarming as the scene that befell me not long after I passed the pack of shiftless cops on motorbikes.

I witnessed bird cannibalism. Pigeons pecking at cold and bony left-over carcasses of their chicken cousins strewn outside Popeye's in a pile of our dirty city's lack of efficient trash pick-up. I shivered at their depravity. I already hate pigeons, much less the eager-to-devour-their-own-kind variety. Then a homeless guy kicked a tree. With purpose. A sad, still leafless (maybe it missed the "Spring is Here" memo?) thin, little tree.

I'm not sure why. I guess some times you just need to kick something, and if all you have a is a tree, well, you kick it.

I prefer kicking things with a little more substance. But that's just me.