Tuesday was frozen and so was I.
I didn’t even cook. I didn’t even write:
I went to bed at nine and woke up at four on Wednesday, which is now,
and came here to make my penance, typing onto the cold white screen under the bright moon.

Solid droplets glitter on the ground outside.
I fielded texts from landlady, asking for the extra money
in exchange for the additional time. I slid away sideways from the specific obsession
about the one cult and listened to stories and opinions about cults more generally.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that my experience with the one
probably affected me more than I ever thought. I moved on, the heat of my soul
melting the ice of it, and the ice of other forms of parental madness,
but that expenditure of hot energy could never go toward anything truly better
than making
a puddle.

It’s a pretty puddle and maybe a little tragic from
this angle or that,
But there isn’t much point to indulging in either damp theory.

Pick up the puddle pieces
Put them in my pocket.
Be ready to walk down the hill
as soon as day breaks.