Tuesday, October 20, 2015

poem || A.J. Huffman


My Law of Three

3 a.m.                                       My internal clock decides I will start
                                                whatever day Hell has set forth for me,
irrespective of how much little sleep I got
that night.

3 minutes                                  I am granted for myself, before being
                                                assaulted by the demands of every Tom,
                                                Dick and Sally who has ever learned
                                                my name.

3 miles                                      Maximum distance my body can run
on treadmill before beginning to snap,
crackle, pop like a bowl of drowning
Rice Krispies.

3 days                                       Before my “monthly friend” arrives.  My
                                                hormones are already raving like drunken
                                                teenagers.  My back aches, my skin is
                                                breaking out.

3 hundred                                  Emails greet me when I turn on
                                                my computer.  I begin answering the demands,
                                                nonsense, and general banalities they scream
                                                at me.

3 hours                                     Into my day and I am already spread so
                                                thin you can see right through me.  I re-initiate
                                                dreaming of elaborate ways to kill myself, escape, my
                                                favorite fantasy.

3 prominent                               Relationships in 3 years, all variable breeds of loser,
                                                all periodically deciding to rear their ugly heads as
                                                reminders of my unwavering social stupidity, all
                                                demand attention they do not deserve, beg for additional
                                                chances.  Denied.

3 inches                                    Of graying roots stare back at me from my mirror,
illustrating how I have neglected to take care of basic self-
                                                maintenance, wave like little flags
of potential surrender.  They must
dye immediately.

3 weeks                                    Of work disappears into cyberspace because
my computer is a temperamental bitch
that decides at random to shut down, goes on
strike.  Again.

3 words                                     That should be banned from the English language:
                                                Could you please . . . (the please, optionally replaced
                                                quite frequently with now!)  They ring
                                                metronomic reverberation from every corner of
                                                my world, from mouths I recognize, from some
                                                I don’t.

3 years                                      I have been working haphazardly on the novel
that might change everything if I could just
scrape together enough energy to
finish it.

3 lifetimes                                 I live each day, none of them mine.  All are filled
                                                with to-do’s and don’ts and should-have-been’s.
                                                I juggle them like the dancing clown in this circus
                                                I have become.

3 pills                                        Of the sleeping variety is what it takes to shut
                                                my mind off, however temporarily, and still
                                                I lie with my eyes open, counting
                                                shadow-sheep until merciful blackness
                                                swallows me.

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