closer to thirty, a wish
I’m closer to thirty now, not just closer to thirty than to twenty—in a very real, fatal way, just one year shy. And just as I wished ten years ago, to fall asleep looking at the ceiling stars in the attic room of my first house, to gather grasses and slap mud into an invisible witch’s brewing pot, to climb the old cherry tree hung over the yard, to play cards by the fire and never win, only to be told I’ll have luck in love; I’m wishing again. Wishing myself ten years back, when life felt grand and I felt so much, heavy-handed and brash with my words, clamorous, unafraid, like the clock would tick out of time, and if only I could talk myself out of bursting at the seams, I had to say it all. To collect love like stamps, a proudly displayed agony. I miss caring; that fire that barely burns now. I’m winning at cards but I am cold. I could barely cry about it if I tried. I only wish that in the future I can be wishing myself back once again, in another ten years or so, that more warmth is coming. More grass-kissed feet and more embarrassing poetry, that something within me did not die, merely embers resting.
