Emaciated

It's the sort of thin that makes you believe a good fit is completely quixotic -- where everything hangs or pulls, stretching taut over the wrong places and glumly bunching in others.  It filters into every crevice.  Trouble comes in bunches; and emotional emaciation is no different, becoming the lenses through which you experience church, school, work, home.  Bilbo Baggins' apt description of "butter over too much bread" sums my feelings today.  The ring of power wears me thin.


I have suggested alternatives to my husband, but he will none of them.  He supposes (rightly, I concede) that the alternatives are like climbing out of the taffy to stand in the tar.  So today I seek fulness of grace in cookie dough and ludicrously long showers, trying to fill the gaping hole instead of diagnosing it.

Nuan Wa, and other unsuitable names

Titles advertise.  They are sandwich boards of the writing world, vulgarly proclaiming artistic contents found inside the author's stores.  Even lovely titles steal some vestige of mystery from unopened covers.
From now on, I shall refer to all my writing as "Untitled [Poem]," "Untitled [Blog]," "Untitled [Story]."  Or I could just adopt my children's teacher's naming technique and refer to things by their nearest object.  In such case, this blog would be entitled, "Broken First Aid Kit Case."

White Rice

My friend Betsy won't make rice anymore. Tiny
toddler hands fingerpaint

sticky white grains
grind pale beads
into blue carpet, she says.
On hands and knees
picking mashed, tacky
blobs of boogers
out of baby hair and nude upholstery

rice seems a practical sort of phobia.

yet, as it dries under her table,
starchy water again escapes
pops and spits
and resists..