When the trash trucks come

Every Friday morning I take him to daycare late

Because that’s the day the trash trucks come

We rush from the breakfast table bagel half chewed

Race to the red car down cement steps barefoot no shoes

The trash trucks are here

I’m in a season of sobriety

of presence

Of wanting to tear my skin apart

Turns out this presence they keep pitching me in 2am reels from the crunchy corners of the internet

Is the opposite of relief

Nirvana is smoking a cigarette in the corner

because they undersold her too

I’m desperate for relief

for reprieve

for a break from this constant tracking. thinking. listing. checking.

This life is one responsibility after another and I’m drowning

I feel silly that my undoing will be over one more registration form

One more Terms & Conditions where I agree to work camps on page 62

I’m suffocated in the monotony

Suffering in the ritualistic lines

Dumbfounded by the inefficiency and the COST of that inefficiency

I think most of my bad habits were formed in DMV lines and Social Security offices across this country

We’re not sick

We’re choking on paperwork and insurance fees and procedures out of pocket

I’m drinking away the paper cuts

The process

my soul withstands

On my one day off

5 hours in the sun

To comply with decisions far above my head by some guy who’s never stood in line

I’m furious and bored and ashamed of my boredom

Bored as the world burns

And God I want a drink or a joint or a little bit of both

But they tell me this time rushes by

It’s gone all too quick

And some day between Tuesday and Wednesday I realized

It’s never coming back

And one day a trash truck will just be a trash truck

And one day he’ll worry about taking out the trash cans and buying bags for the bins

And trash trucks will also remind him of his responsibilities and that list

But today they are magic and something worth running over

Off down the concrete steps out of breath barefoot no shoes

So tomorrow I will wake up sober

Tomorrow I will be uncomfortable

Tomorrow I will be present

Because tomorrow

the trash trucks come