Pretty Things

Pretty Things by
David Bowie was rattling around in my head like a penny in a tin can
late at night I was

building tenuous struts from imaginary castles to real skyscrapers
linking the family I'd been born into with
the friends I had chosen
family is a concept made tenuous by distance and made real by our choices
that's just how connections work

Earl Grey was on my tongue and silver oxide on my fingertips as I
untangled and broke a dozen tiny chains, trying to fix what
errant neglect had done and

I contemplated the Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain 
like a scab or like a lost blood clot left in the tub from a shower that was too quick
a new period in my life, and one that kept going--
damn the hormones

I

considered being a mermaid for half an hour or an hour
whiling away time under a red light, in a few litres of heat and enlightenment


and I
I

remembered the days when pain was an option and a quaint memory, something that
I

had assumed was part of my past; that

brief

moment of confidence that heartbreak and ache and soreness were behind me was
a long time ago

we
talk about the arrogance of youth all the time but I
knew better then.

And now--
I know better
than to know better.

***

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