Today is Sunday and I took photos of a new friend

I am grateful that I take photos of my friends 

I want to frame them and put them on my walls 

the photos, too


I came home to jams my parents sent me

and made pancakes to try them with

– raspberry is always my favorite flavor 

There are avocados on the counter 

that will be ready this week

and the men outside my window are 

blowing around the last leaves of November 



I don't spend every Sunday like this

Sometimes, I spend Sunday deciding what I am


Deciding I am fleece lined mittens, 

and warm baths, 

and love letters

but maybe I am frostbite, 

a stomach ache, 

or a return address

Really I am bones 

and breath 

and blood 

and hair


Sometimes I think that’s too much 

but I am just a girl 

with a collection of jams 

waiting for the avocados on the counter to be ready


Sometimes I want to wear a hoodie to bed 

but I should call my mom instead 

Sometimes I want to disappear 

but thank goodness I didn't 

when it's time to shower

and wash my hair again 


I could do this all day

completing myself 


I’m tempted to try and complete you

I’m tempted to finish the sentences 

I started about you 

like how I watched your hair dry 

from the back of the lecture hall the other day 

but this and the rest are all helpless run ons 


I'd rather write that sometimes, 

my hair drys the way it did when I was small

in unruly curls I struggle like my mother did to manage 


Some say walking is falling and catching yourself

Being alive is like that, too 

Except when you want to stop

Lie in your own bed 

the pillows soaking up your freshly washed hair

while it drys all around you in spirals 


Being alive is like that too


November, 2022