The easiest way is to say it

Friday nights are hard.

There is no one to call in the city
when night pulls the sharpest stars out of me,
holds up a mirror of inadequate longing.

My parents still laugh at each other’s jokes.
This used to be a comfort. Sometimes, it still is.

A. writes: What surprises have you allowed yourself?

Two friends make plans to meet up after work.
They don’t ask me if I’m free. I won’t ask for their pity.

On the drive home, I chew on the news
that a couple on TV married each other
in real life. Imagining can be just as good
as living the life I want.

I rename the dashes in the periphery
of my visual field as I make it up the stairs.
At the top, I cherish the dizzy blur of fireflies.

Thumbing through an old book of poems,
a room to almost enter, a room within a room:
from the back row, I once saw a poet read his last poem
then sit down, his friend’s fingers drawing loose circles
on his back. A fluid motion I took to mean together
they lived within & outside the poem.

The absence of intimacy beckons me to sleep.

Morning begins with a list of things,
not to accomplish, but to accompany
myself through the weekend:

a trip to the library
a pot of khichidi
tea before the sun sets
emails texts indefinite
length of time on the floor
with whisper-driven vocals
that never bruise the hue of night
that smudges the sky a goodbye kiss
that doesn’t require a partner

Cautious optimism shuffles me out of bed.

Routine wordlessly bundles me in a wool coat.