Napo-Prelude 3/31/26: Store Bought

 Prompt from NapoWrimo. It starts tomorrow, y'all.

I don't know if this is hard won
or just another compromise. Sanitized,
pre-packaged. Off-brand (never off flavor)
snack-shaped objects and the family is
fed another week. As we elbow through
three aisle calamity to weave through essentials
and the excess. Balancing the checkbook of
wants and needs. Now and Later. 
Mouth's watering at the impending coin coming
back into our pocket when we return our carts.
This, at least, is free.

Munch's The Scream was stolen
right from our collective throats. The sight and
sound, on display in some bunker of excess and
the finer things. In front of some interpretation of
controlled flame and feet up.
No sense of a bargain. Just
a mouth, hanging open. Maybe, it's just
hungry. Maybe, it has never known fullness.
Maybe, it just waits for the rest of us to check
out in the controlled lines of the overworked
for the cart to be returned and the parking space to
free itself from our collective presence.
for the lights to go out in the store.
in our homes. in our
hearts.

Then, and only then, will it close its mouth.
Only then, it will be satisfied.

holistic

all of the time, soul and body telling each other stories through a tin can walkie talkie. old friends, known it all along. mistakes were made and yet, let the record show, they aren't blaming the other just yet. not the time. bonds aren't meant to fray so easily.

give it time. let the understanding run its course. we'll see what they're made of yet. and soon enough, we'll know beyond the shadow of any doubt.

everything, in time.

Healer

some version of me/past perfect/you/ know the type
made myself/reimagined./this is me and you/and you
likely have a different version of the events./i want to
right the ship/all the time, subconscious fixes/fixations.

me/aberration in the wavelengths/wave tables/we are
here /never/.

we were here/maybe?

i want to dress it up the way it could have or should have
been/and/this is personal./

i'm sorry for involving you/this go around/let it
be/good, and buried/

reminiscing/lord, help each of us/we'll make
it right/soon/

enough.

deep-fried life

misconnected flare signals. traffic akimbo.
awash with guilt and buyer's remorse.
porch-bound tourists
see the grid go ahead and lock itself.
never willing to look the neighbors
in their eyes.
fueled by batter and an enterprising
sense of propriety.
anything and everything will be fried.
what do we wait
for, out here? out there?
where to?

my misgivings from the crunch
and disbursements of flavor profile
too good
to deny. my own
bashful denials come
in rushes of blood to
the offending pieces of me:
heart and mind.

we will wait.
we are full and drunk
on power. soon direction
will be given and the wave
will crest and we will be
gifted movement.
soon we will know our
fullness.

careful cheerful

we are forms in socks
sliding on the floor
dreaming of flying
not quite ready to leave the ground.

I will never be quite
sure of myself, but I 
want you to believe in 
yourself when I tell you sweet nothings.

anything I've ever tried to say
was destined to end up in the wind
just hoping that it landed and
hit the mark before it went on its way.

I hope we'll follow suit.
I hope we'll find our way
sooner than later
before too long
becomes never.