(Listen here)

 

Once upon a normal while,

I sat on a chair at a desk

curled my fingers

’round a strand of hair

and I listened to my breath

caught ‘tween nostrils:

inhale one two three

exhale one two three

shallow breathing would not

simply dance for free.

One two three,

keeping time in a life

not mine, caught in a man’s

sweet reverie.

 

Once upon a normal while

I hugged a pillow on a couch

Netflix streaming on the screen

his body down the cushions

far from me and I could not breath

one two three

I could not see

between him and me

or understand how

I ended up in mediocrity.

 

Or how I lost the sense

to even count my way to three.

 

Once upon a normal while

I roamed the southern streets

and although my feet

hit pavement every day

I forgot what it felt like

to run in zigzagged lines

I forgot what it meant to drizzle

sauce on hands that seemed

so serious, so tied

to a life that was not mine.

A life where I could not keep time

to one two three,

one two three.

 

And once upon a normal while

this poem flitted through my mind

and I could not for a moment

conceptualize

what the fuck that meant to me.