On the fringe

These days I feel like

I’m living on the fringe,

out of control,

not very motherly of me,

but I’m off the hook

the baby died.

He/she doesn’t need me to be a good mom

or folic acid.

My other baby is growing up,

and she mothers me from time to time

(though my therapist frowns upon it.)

I don’t sleep well

no one taught me how.

My daughter is trying to teach me:

she says you only have to close your eyes

and think of something soft.

I guess I don't have enough soft things

to think about.

I’m reckless

with my body,

it may be my temple,

but I want to deface it.

No worries,

there is nothing sacred inside.

Not anymore.

I wake up early,

I do my chores,

I teach M her letters.

I mostly worry.

But I’m drunk with the vertigo of wakefulness,

I need to be knocked out.

I read well into the night.

I write from time to time.

Tomorrow I will wake up in time,

I won’t hit snooze,

it won’t be easy or pretty

but I’ll do it.

I’m not expected to be a good human being,

to eat on schedule

and go to bed at a sensible time.

No need to scold me,

the world does not feel the need to berate me.

I do a far better job

I'm a cotton ball

"I'm a cotton ball"

M said proverbially with all the abundant wisdom of her four years of age.

I humbly asked for an explanation, full aware that my ignorance of the term showed my poorly evolved and pedestrian mind.

What I was able to understand from her explanation is that dolls are stuffed with cotton and/or their hair is made of it. And that the silly crazy girls who deliver ingenious one-liners (such as herself) are cotton balls.

She called herself one after an effervescent display of zaniness.

She's like a cotton ball

weightless

and fleeting

as bubbles of champagne.

She's light

like a golden spec of dust

like a dandelion blowing in the wind.

Cotton balls do not possess the insanity of tortured poets. 

M's quirkiness is far above 

and I read it in her cotton candy smiles.

I have not reincarnated enough.

I'm not transcended enough

to reach that cloud-like state of being.

 

But I'll dream every night of being a cotton ball.