Banana Pancakes

my mom spends a lot of nights being sad about the polar bears
& sifting through old cabinets like dirt
trying to find things she never misplaced and
describing mediocre ground breaking truths
like how falling in love never leaves a good taste in your mouth
imparting me with deluded bravery through her clenched
perpetually shaking jaw
she's always asking me if I'm ready to take on the world
and pointing to the backyard
meanwhile she doesn’t even give me credit for
having mastered being subtly afraid of everything

Thursday

I listened to you snore until 2 am
until I got frustrated
until your breathing patterns got too aggressive
to have anything to do with mine

when I woke up
I watched a tree fall on the news and felt inexplicably sad
like it will never be the world’s job to be clumsy
and it will never be my job to think about things rationally

my existentialism teacher is always talking about shooting from the hip
& how amazing it is to watch humans love
the ideas of things
but I am a familiar theme and I am
always riding my bike too close to cars and I am
always feverishly off balance in all windowless rooms
thinking about escape routes I am always
thinking about escape routes

I will let you know
when I find the fastest way back