i’ve always been on a
mission to reinvent myself

a mission expressed through
spreadsheets, guitars
powerpoints, paintbrushes
fabric, calculator buttons
bright colors of yarn
coffee and flowers
smiles at strangers
and always words

here and there
then and again
i’ve found myself satisfied
with who i found myself
to be at the end
of the week

i thought things were
on the upswing
thought that i had
almost made it
for two months this year
i was satisfied

with fifty six hour work weeks
and the bright blue blanket
forming under my fingers
the feeling of hope
brewing when i looked in
my bank account and thought
about him
about the home
that wasn’t ours yet but
would be soon

and then it began
to crumble
a brick or two at
a time until a whole
piece of the picture
tumbled out

and my weeks were reduced
to thirty five hours and
a crippling sense of
impending disaster
even though everything else
was still looking up

now that i have a
bit of extra time i find
myself low on motivation
and wondering
if it’s time to build
a new version of myself

but i’ve reinvented myself
so many times
i don’t have the energy
to do it again

i just want to
exist

just want to fall
asleep in bed at the
end of the day and
not wake up in the morning
wanting to sleep
for the rest of the day

to enjoy moving
my body
the way the
seasons change
and how the stars
look at night

i’ve always been good
at staying
you just keep doing
what you’ve been doing
let your routines pull
you along with them

but now i’m learning
the art of leaving
and i’m finding its not
as hard as i thought it was

in fact you might
even think
of it as almost
freeing

the leaving
behind of what’s
gotten too
familiar
the option to
reinvent

past leavings
have hurt
left me reeling
on cold floors
fighting to get air
into my lungs

but this time
the leaving is
quiet
barely noticeable
in the chilly
morning dew
as i let myself
slip away
under the gray sky
that hasn’t yet
realized it’s hanging
over a lost town

and i don’t feel pain
only the slightest
twinge of
bittersweet nostalgia

i’m not going
to reinvent myself
this time
i’m going to
exist
and somewhere
along the line
i think maybe
it’s myself
that i’ll find

i freaked out
last night.

blind spots
ripped blue
jeans sleep
deprivation.

and i freaked out
last night.

crying
i cried like
the sky was
falling.

maybe the sky
was falling.

hang these
powerpoints
from the tallest
tower
and come
sunday morning
we will
parade their
pixalated carcasses
through the streets.

but i'm not
leaving.

i freaked out
last night.

my palpitating
thoughts
my phone keeps
buzzing
like i have some
kind of
responsibility to
the sneaky sneaky
women on the other
side of my texts.

not when i freaked out
last night.



Copyright 12/6/15 by B. E. McComb

Dulcet words, drifting silent through the telephone line.
To descry and practice palmistry, see their heart line.

5:15, waiting, stuck in the post office again.
Checked my phone for attention, clocked out from work's confines.

Work to stave off hunger, stressing, a chore filled weekend.
monotonous, chugging to stay out of the bread lines.

Stuck with that tension, heavy textbooks, and starved checkbooks
We tap their name to call, to consider our repine.

Driving down the sunset laden road, running from home.
The clicks, dings of texts, newfound mistakes breath down my spine.

I gaze through the traffic, road signs, iconographic
Each full up on luck, until the cop provides his fine

So attached to these devices, our lives caught on screens.
Should we take it for granted, just part of His design?


The struggling reach out hands, from the bottom of their heap,
Their system, quite the firm one, no room for our opine.

Some believe their dreams, are in government powerpoints,
others forget dreams, spend time praying on the divine.

How can they keep their comfort, while wishing all that ill,
To die without a purpose, is that what they enshrine?

"Oh Nathan, why bother waiting for nothing to change?",
I scoff, a tear falls, as I reach to hang up the line.

another protest
october sun in knoxville
chilly but
the leaves still shake green
krutch park,
patches of grass brim with bodies
tent *****, occupying
you and I
munch on six dollar subs
after the general assembly
crisp air carrying
the taste of spring
that same elusive flavor
which rolled on the tongue
during Arab Spring. but I
remember
how that ended.

another protest
riots
reading Stonewall
post-MLK assassination
at the Gandhi-King conference
I wonder why there're no children,
just adults, tired,
all their experience
cloistered
in empty classrooms and powerpoints.

another protest,
hands up
blocking intersections
my phone buzzes
but I can’t hear it
"why are you wasting your time?"
he growls later.

another protest,
another black body.
extra credit in the sixth grade
nearly failing English -
"write about Jim Crow" -
I lost myself
counting names:
oppression prefers continuity.

now,
far from home,
too far,
fifty dollars bail
still sounds too paltry
but there’s little left now.
twitter feeds are burning buildings
pepperspray and milk.
mouth dry, I watch,
I count the names again,
I hope tomorrow we won’t need
another protest.

Its normal to forget sometimes, right?
Perhaps a face
the way your lovers face searches for the truth whenever she has caught you in a lie
or maybe what day of the week it is
But in my case, it really isn’t
I sometimes have no recollection of an entire event
Be it 5 minutes long or something that lasted for a very long time
I cannot remember the who, what, where, or the when
The why part never really seems to make any sense to me afterwards
I wasn’t always like this but now I have been dubbed as the woman who is very likely to loose herself one day
Its not too far from the truth to be honest,
I wish i could forget some things
Expcially the people who no longer exsist
Its perfectly notmal for me to be immersed in grading papers and making last minute edits to powerpoints due the next morning  but I still cannot for the number of punches you threw down at me, every time you were ****** about something
I can be talking over the phone with some one but then my brain starts to itch in trying to remember if you ever truly loved me
I can sit in total silence, comepletely relaxed but I can't seem to forget forget why i ever sacrificed so much for you when everybody else knew that we were never going to last and you would be the first to walk away
Times are different now
I know that
But i still cannot forget.