Looping Life (Just A Tuesday)
this was for a contest called Just A Tuesday
5:30 a.m.
“Put on your war paint!”
Fall Out Boy alarms me
My heart rises like a caged bird
Naked under warm water, planning escape routes from my life
Brush my teeth
Pull on jeans and a t-shirt
Change my mind—change my skin
Make my lunch: egg salad sandwich, an apple—small rites
Feed the stray feline saints of the court
Make the Mini Cooper hum a lonely psalm
Drive into gray nondescript morning
Traffic steals fifteen minutes
Enter POs, cut checks, the repetitive grind of desk work adding to my carpal tunnel
Noon: lunch bag forgotten in morning rush
Hunger becomes a low, growling lion in my belly, waiting to pounce
Autopilot drives me home
Eat my lunch for dinner
Fall asleep to Michael Scott,
my companion in this quiet, looping life
The Office soothing like a lullaby
Alarm waits, patient and reliable
Tomorrow, I will rise
Phoenix or not, I will rise
**********************************************************************
Each morning my alarm plays Fall Out Boy’s song “The Phoenix”
About the Creator
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More stories from Tina D. Lopez and writers in Poets and other communities.
December 8, 1980
When I was six or seven, my stepdad came into my life, and I remember thinking he knew everything. He could befriend anybody, anywhere. In grocery stores, he chatted with strangers over cuts of meat; at gas stations, he bonded with people pumping fuel over how the smell of gasoline was disgusting and yet enjoyable. In restaurants, he took an interest in waiters’ lives—like Steve, whose father was dying of cancer. When Steve’s dad died, my new dad attended the funeral.
By Tina D. LopezExclusive • 2 months ago
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