And Then I Could Breathe Again

Image by Serena Joyce

Instead of picking up a pen or a paintbrush

and getting down the ten thousand words/images

that were flooding my head, my heart, my lungs – my breath

I wiped coffee stains off the old kitchen table, fed 

the dog, the cat, the children

brushed the tangles out of my nine-year-old's hair while she screamed 

that I was hurting her,yelled at my twelve-year-old to hurry or 

we would be late – again, got entirely too pissed off 

at the slow driver in front of me, forgot to remember

to breathe.   Instead of emptying the overflowing 

pile of tangled shit that has been scratching and screaming

and gnawing and howling inside of me for days, weeks – decades

I scrubbed dried quinoa from the rice cooker, scoured 

the internet for the perfect paint color 

for my newly remodeled living room, folded two loads

of other people's clothes, unloaded the dishwasher, made coffee,

checked email ten times in ten minutes, called my sister, my mom, my friend

scanned Facebook update after Facebook update for some sort of –

inspiration? Instead of giving voice

to the thing inside me I was born to give voice to – I stared at the tiny freckle on my right foot and thought about how Hitler, before he murdered

millions, wanted to be an artist.  And then I thought 

of the quote about how - what you don't bring forth will kill you

and I wondered if I would ever, ever make anything of my life. Instead of 

making the ten millionth fucking excuse I sat my ass down 

on the soft swiveling chair in the room I created so I could create

and breathed a breath that reached all the way down to that tiny freckle

and wrote these words. 

Then I stepped outside into the sun's big arms

and danced