Of grocery lists & other things.

I am a mess of things unsaid and things that should never have been said.

A walking playlist of songs that don't match up, constantly on shuffle 

with the volume too high sometimes.

I feel like a broken record on a broken record player, 

and usually two negatives equal a positive 

but not today, darling.

I am an unorganized list of loud qualities.

My bones metaphorically break and my hands twitch and I hum in my sleep.

I'm on constant replay.

I'm a book you set down after the first 3 chapters don't captivate you, 

but they promised the ending was worth the read.

Maybe I was just made to weed out the less durable ones, 

the impatient ones, 

the non-believers.

I refuse to make promises and never keep the imaginary ones.

I'm the manual rewind on a VCR, 

the deleted scene they cut out of the movie but still put on the DVD,

I love oxygen and think about flowers 

but I hang my problems like old-fashioned laundry because I'm not willing to fix the dryer. 

I'm the broken but fixable dryer.

I'm the reason the video isn't that cool and the slideshow only filled two songs.

I'm the moment you realized you didn't fit in a size small anymore,

the grainy, dry-food feeling on the counter 

and the host of a 3-year-old birthday party that has too many guests.

And I love leaving cold buildings for the heat of the sun,

but I'm not as polite as the Chik-fil-a staff and my teachers used to tell us 

we had to choose between being a Southern woman and a country girl.

I chose to leave.

And I may have only had one cavity,

but I am that one cavity.

Mama said I was the extra song on the deluxe album,

the last half of Jane Eyre,

a book whose final 2 chapters threw everything off the table.

She said I was the last time you ever jumped on the trampoline before it ripped, 

and the pain in your abdomen from laughing so hard.

People become the smell of a new box,

the sound of the doorbell and the glint of the UPS truck from behind it

And I like to think I'm the "peanuts or pretzels" of the journey

and the spatula you used to scrape the dirt off the counter,

because I don't deserve to be an unexpected bouquet or a pair of new shoes

and not many people know I collect dried flowers.

I am just a person with eyes and ears and a mouth and things,

with a pair of sunglasses I stole from a boy my junior year

a shirt that doesn't belong to me

and a heart that hasn't stopped feeling since the war.