Blue Moon

The summer's off to a roaring start as we juggle from kitchen to shoe rack to pool.  Damp towels curled up like heavy roadkill on the bathmat keep me absolutely insane.  The kids and I are pink and waterlogged before dinner.  It's been hot dogs a lot for dinner.  The days take on a choppy rhythm of ease, rush, ease, rush, then BLAMMO - exhaustion.  Seven pm comes before any of us have had dessert.

I would tuck in the children tonight but I don't want to even a little.  Me and my room temperature Blue Moon will not peel ourselves from this temporary hide and please have mercy on my soul don't seek.  The TVs on in the living room pushing out ocean spray and intermittent beeps from a captain's ship where, I'm sure, there is no television.

I've grown to detest TV.  It is loud box of noise which scrambles things in my mind that reach for each other then drop hold at their fingertips.  Less of a dying and more of a never met.

There is this story I want to write about the most darling broken kitten I found off a parkway on Father's Day and I will.   But stories are hiding behind eaves of frustrated bricks, stacking themselves tightly around something I can't name:  fatigue, angst, disappointment, fear, PMS?  I don't know but my skull feels dark with black cooking grease, the kind that pops off the pan and right into the crease of your garbage can.

I'm hearing thumps and echoes in the tub that is the kitten climbing and slipping with her legs outstretched like it's the Rebel Yell.  The only sound better is her purring.  A kitten's purr makes up for everything.  One slow blink of their almond eyes and all is forgiven.

It's been months since I've gone to bed willingly.  Like I'm fending off the moon with a desire to lay thoughts down on a table in singular file with all edges aligned.  Until the morning comes to scatter them to oblivion.

The kitten is quiet now.  She would tuck herself in if I never closed her kennel for her.  But I will do my rounds:  straighten covers, check doors, brush chlorinated hair from sweaty temples.  Then I'll return to this quiet room and stale Blue Moon to see about those stories.