Here at home, the basic pantry should be:\ncoffee, eggs, and flowers,\neven if sometimes I go days without eating\njust to indulge the whim of keeping the vase full\nand my heart racing from the half pot\nI drink every day and later regret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The investment I make in those terminally ill ones\ngives me a bit of meaning, \nsometimes for five days,\nand, in the best of luck, fifteen.\nIt feels more noble and simpler\nto change their water daily,\nprotect them from the heat,\nadd vitamins to a small bouquet of flowers\nslowly losing their lives\nfrom the moment they were torn from the earth\nand mutilated without permission,\nthan to care for myself in order to live my own.\nThe infamous Catholic guilt that no longer walks with me\nonly gets in the way,\nand still I grant it reason every time I believe\n\u201cI\u2019m not fit to live, I live to serve,\u201d\nand then I politicize my guilt\nby refusing myself as a contributor\nto anything useful at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between usefulness and intelligence\nI lose myself with no intention of being found.\nHow heavy the body becomes when it moves without meaning.\nMy soul slips away in little fragments\nand my chest no longer hurts when I cry.\nI rest my bones in bed for endless hours every day\nuntil my flowers wither\nor the coffee pot is finally empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve forgotten many words,\nand also how to conjugate them;\nI suppose this is what it feels like\nto die little by little.\nThe fear of truly dying makes me carry a small piece of wood\nand \u201cknock on it,\u201d\njust as Adriana once told me\nthat was how she had \u201csaved herself from so many things.\u201d\nI wonder if flowers, when they arrive home,\nalso feel they\u2019ve forgotten something,\nwhat the sun felt like on their petals, for instance,\nor how to stretch themselves toward the sky;\nwhether their sister flowers\nremained in the field\nor died a little along with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n