These past few days have been difficult. Something like a storm surge instead of the constant ebb and flow of effort and ease. Someone used the phrase storm in a teacup. But that’s not quite right.

I get it: sometimes drama is a diversion from a real problem. A shrew in the bushes on the loose riverbank in spring.

But sometimes it’s the sputtering leak before the hose bursts.

I typed out a list of things in a messenger exchange with my kid. He called it my anti-gratitude list. I felt a little foolish. But I’ve been considering since whether I needed to write one. Not to dwell on, but to see what I need to let go of. All the fancy therapeutic writing exercises, when maybe all I need is this list on a piece of paper.

And maybe a pair of scissors.
And maybe a thick, black marker.

A box of matches
(Something in a minor key?)
Driftwood and kindling
Fricatives and plosives

All spells are taken
back and forth and back again
until the very end
“for each man kills the thing he loves”
doused in oils and dissonance