This Is How I Heal
By CL Bledsoe
I wash enough things
to make me forget
my hands. I count
dogwood blossoms
until I’ve forgotten
how many times
I’ve started over.
I make a video in
the stairwell I just
cried in trying to
sell it to the French.
Offer the squirrels
outside the window
nuts until they pancake
on the glass. Then feel
strangely ashamed. Some
people who don’t
understand time think
it exists all at once.
The past is now.
The present is the past.
And the future is
something that happens
to other people, who
were better at planning
or just had more luck
than I ever did.
