I miss myself. I miss the self I am, when I’m with you.

I am re-reading Charles Simic’s “The World Doesn’t End.” I have about fifty books on my bookshelf I haven’t read. I have some books, people would pay me to read, and write a review about but no, I’m reading Simic b/c he is calm and beautiful. I bet he is not in the process of moving. I bet he doesn’t wear purple suede boots, though one never knows. I want to think of him, washing vegetables in his sink, writing a poem by an open window. Charles makes me calm. I’m taking him to bed.

I have a couple readings coming up. I have a couple of grants due. I think Carolyn is getting back to me about the book this week but it’s feeling almost done again. I am half way done the manuscript I am working on of short stories. I am a third of the way done the prose poem manuscript. I need more life or less life and more windows and vegetables. I need you.

Last night I dreamt I was on the TV show 7th Heaven (it is like a modern day Walton’s) and Lucy sat me down in her Minster chair and told me everything was going to be alright, I didn’t need to worry about anything. I never dream I’m on TV shows—this definitely means I am not reading enough.

I want everything to be alright. I’m not sure I know exactly what that means. When I was a grief counselor I told people all the time they got to feel what they felt, not to rush themselves. When Evan’s dad was killed in a car crash, years later after I stopped grief counseling, when he came to my art class and told me all the ants in my room didn’t have daddies, I spent hours finding each one, building them a city out of plexiglass. I told him they were safe and each class we would watch them grow and build, make tunnels in the sand.

I know where all the ants live.