Follow-through

Repetitive noise--the dust that won't let me sleep, like bushy-tailed exhaustion, wide awake sleep-thrashes and the barrage of nameless voices, earnest in pay, telling me that I'm too fat, my skin too blotchy, my food dull.

I can never be anorexic enough.

Insomnia for the self-analytic that never works, for the teeth that grind and slide around a tongue that writhes--swollen and pasty from dehydration.

Earlier I stacked my chipped china for guests I never entertain. I have a list of things I never entertain, like __________ and the notion of reliability.

I've redeemed myself--packed guilt and skeletons in boxes taped and stored in the hall closet. The one in which you'd expect to find dismembered bodies and dead cats. Splintered floors that have never been intentionally stained, and a trap door eerie in its storage capacity. I dropped those boxes (labeled 'winter clothes') on the floor and buried them under extraneous cables/cords, a folding chair, then two, and fabric I never got around to stitching.