3
taylor burgin:
ONE Lifetime
I have been given at least.. or most
40 million, 884 thousand, four hundred and 84 minutes
to breathe in soil and post-partum rain.
I will dream of kind boys and dark corners,
among others,
for nine thousand, one hundred and 25 days.
I will know the touch and feel of at most 15 men...
unless my high school sweetheart never gets tired of me.
And only feel the way those men promise me I would
33 percent of the time, and the other 67 percent?
I would make noises like the movies told me to,
that they associate with a good job and a pat on their backs.
I will stir 86 thousand spoons of ground coffee
and ask myself daily why my hands are shaking,
when I can fill one hundred and 25 bathtubs and swim
through caffeinated veins.
One thousand four hundred and 50 words will be meaningless
each day, filling black spaces I wanted to paint yellow.
This leaving only five hundred and 50 words
to hold value like tension between two.
I will be nine hundred different women with the same
social security number as my skin keeps turning over.
One hundred and 83 million, seven hundred and 55 thousand,
and six hundred steps
each on an a different earth that never stays the same
long enough for me to feel at home
in a single lifetime I can call mine.