Do you sit in your car?

Holiday poem

Do you sit in your car?
Five minutes here
Five minutes there
In that limbo
Where you can just
Not know.

Where you can be.
Or become.
Or cry.

Just sitting
Without coming
Or going.
Maybe scrolling
Or just spacing out
Or watching the dog walkers.
Or light changing.
Five minutes here.
Five minutes there.

Maybe you listen to one more song.
Or the end of a story.
Maybe you stare at your favorites.
Thinking there is someone
You could call
With the emptiness
The lonliness
The not knowing
Anything at all.

Five minutes here.
Five minutes there.
On the way out
When you know
You should press start engine.
On the way in.
To something you’re already late for.
Maybe you dread pulling out the bags
From the back.
Or putting on the smile.

Do you ever leave a little extra time.
So you can steal
Five minutes here
Five minutes there?

Sometimes I imagine a future.
We got through the rocky patch
Yay.

It turned out to be a rocky patch!

We rode the tide of radical change.
We manifested the best case scenario
We turned waves into energy
And got it - that we are one
And the aliens helped us instead of probing us
And money became equitably distributed
And emotional intelligence soared.

And then the kids ask
What was it like before?
And we start to tell what happened.
And they say no.
What was it like.
And we say
Oh. Well.
We sat in cars.
Waiting to go in.
To wherever.
Because it was all.
What?
A lot.

It was all just a lot.

And they look at us
And laugh.
Isn’t a lot great they say?
And it’s so hard to explain.
We rattle off drastic statistics.
They’re way ahead of that.
And they look at us with eyes of love.
Grateful.
And compassionate.
Because we were somehow brave enough
To stick with it.
Though not without these little unscheduled breaks.
Five minutes here.
Five minutes there.

I turn off the engine.
And go in.
Because yes!
I’m here for it.
I guess I volunteered for it.
Count me in
Even while I take a breather.

Five minutes here
Five minutes there.

xx

Beth