Some days

Some days I am an animal biting myself.
Some days I am the memory of an unwanted gift.
Some days I am the blemish on a gilded picture frame.

Some days I do not fit
into the spaces meant for me; not
even on the highways built for strangers;
not even as a gentle friend.

Some days I am misplaced.
Some days I am my own dark imagination of myself.
Some days I am a thousand mild annoyances.

There will be better days
There will be worse days
These days are only middling
But when the universe has tilted
Listing to one side, still—

Some days I am the sidewalk underfoot
students bickering sourly about their love,
rotting & spoiled: no longer a comfort
but a threat, a catch in the throat, a snarl.

Some days I am all mast and no hull.

Some days I must remind myself
I have a right to be here.

January 2020