And They Want Me To Practice Mindfulness At A Time Like This
I tell my therapist
About the legislative anomalies
Growing inside my belly
She tells me:
Yes, I know you’re hungry
Yet try to imagine yourself full.
Fill your belly with clean air.
Count to four
Then exhale.
Good.
She encourages me
To speak to an empty chair
To tell it everything
I never could say
To my empty Frigidaire
I tell the chair
Look, I’m here
Ribs touching
Like two angry fists
My stamps replenish on the 6th
And I got no food in you, my fridge
I need some funds to get me over the hump
And the pantry down the street
Already said I came twice in one month
Can you help me get something to eat?
Please. I need something to eat.
My therapist tells me breathe.
Breathe.
Asks me to name two things I can hear
Three things I can see
Accuses me of catastrophizing
Says I’m not breathing deep
There’s such criminality in me
When I’m hungry
And the price of things
Keep right on costing me
And now my therapist thinks
I’m a mindfulness flunky
And the president
Just cut my food stamps by 20
And I breathe
And breathe
And breathe
Till there’s nothing left of me
But a meditative memory
Bones left of a country
That has wasted inside of me
Like me, full of breath
Just this and nothing else.