my daily commute #1

by leiani

some lady's sobbing
in the car next to me
I don't ask her why
we just drive
block to block as red
fades to green
she's in a sphere
all her own
each car that passes
does not see the pain
blasted in uneven
holes across her chest
and those few who do
notice tears streaking shoulder
it off as secondhand
pain or pms -- anything
to keep them from worrying
God knows they've got enough on their plate
without the girl whose face hangs
in my rearview mirror
on my daily commute

Weekend Parking

It was this paralyzing fear. One I'd felt before, but never with the actual effect of paralyzing. I easily blamed it on lack of sleep, on the account of a dying mother, on a lack of desire--the usual excuses. But the shaking was new. Perhaps it was imagined? Some cruel joke played by a maimed, but otherwise healthy, mind? It's possible. (Is it possible to be both maimed and healthy? A conversation I'll have with myself later, I'm sure--but not in the way that would make you question my sanity, I hope).
But every outlook seemed bleak. If I went, I would subject myself to talking to people, if I stayed they would ask me why, I would question my sanity and hate myself for my incapacities and inconsistencies, imaginary or otherwise. Something so routine as taking the bus or finding available parking spots seemed more than a great burden - a legitimate, inexplicable fear. No amount of love for you and desire to see you could seemingly trigger movement in my motionless body in that moment of decision.
Somehow you convinced me to move. It was as simple as the comforting thought of a hairy hug from a secondhand sweater and the breezy feeling of wind on my open-kneed jeans: I didn't decide to go so much as I decided what to wear. As trivial as it may sound to anyone else, as trite as it actually may be, that was all it was and that was all it took.
But I didn't know what it really was--beyond anxiety (I so hate that word. That word holds claim over real people and real struggles, but I cannot begin to claim a destructive force I am nowhere near acquainted with, though we've exchanged pleasantries and have mutual friends), if you can call it that. And that scares me almost as much as the shake of my hands as a stranger took the cash I was offering willingly but without looking them in the eye because for a split second I unlearned how to leave the house and that felt like an edge I hadn't before neared, an edge that everyone could see in the angular, skeletal frame I try to cloak in oversized hoodies and sweaters. And I am left only with the thought: do I fear the shake or the possibility there might be a reason behind it?