Two Poems and Another Thing

Here are some things I've written lately. This first one was a writing warm-up from a class I'm in. Our prompt was to write about the snow. The rest are just poems I wrote at some point(s) before you're reading this and after I was born. 

It's cold out there. Everyone keeps telling me it's not that bad, it's warmer than yesterday or Chicago but it's cold. I don't mind. I've got gloves now, and I got my hat back from Nick. The snow's nice, anyway. I'm trying to be more positive. Auri and I were walking to the bus today and she said something about how beautiful it was out and I thought, you know what? It is, isn't it? Hard to notice sometimes when you're trudging through it, but I'd missed this. Something about it makes me feel childlike. You can't help but to feel small compared to the piles of snow on the side of the road, or at least I can't. It's nice. Made me a little more hopeful this morning. I've been trying to be more positive. 

Ten Dollar Special

I saw the psychic on Hawthorne Road today.

She said I was a good person,

that I was caring and generous,

that my aura was beautiful.

She called me “my dear”

and read my palm without even touching it,  her toddler in her lap.

She said she could see I was unsatisfied in my work or my love life,

and I am, 

but, then again, who comes in for the ten dollar special

satisfied with their life?

I know a psychic, but not like the one on Hawthorne Road, a real one.

Her office,

that’s what the sign read,

“Psychic Office,”

was decorated with a painting of Jesus and a statue of Buddha,

a deck of tarot cards her toddler absently bent,

placing them one by one on the table like he must’ve seen her do before.

I think I’m a psychic too, 

telling people whatever they want to hear.

Every now and then I have this feeling,

an urging from a place beyond,

and usually it’s right

(though I never listen). 

It spoke to me today:

“Go to the psychic on Hawthorne Road,

the one with the toddler in her lap.

Ask for the ten dollar special

and let her speak her sweet lies,

whatever you want to hear.”

Poem

I’m so fucking 

cold. We’ve been in

side for ten min

utes already. My hands

are still shivering. 

I’m so exhausted. 

All I can do is 

lay down on the floor.

You cook me a meal and pour me a cup of tea, hand me a square of your chocolate, tell me to pick any game and we can play it together, watch as I doze off on the couch.