Bag of Hearts

The bag of hearts is so old it disintegrates in my hand.
I was saving it for a special time but that disintegrated too.
I brush it up. With the powder and dust.

The white pages of the new notebooks are yellowed and worn. There are no words in them. Maybe my thoughts wore them out.

I write options in a scrapbook. Tear them up. Slice through the pages like claws through bark. As if slicing them up will destroy them. The scrapbook inside can never be torn. Time. Place. Action. It records year after year. Relentless and pointless. Like Ticker tape.

To have a list is to determine the action. Thick black ticks sit on the chair. On the paper. Things to buy. Things to do. The order of events. Taking a chance to within an inch of accuracy. It is a paradox. To scream. Let me be nothing. I imagine the time when my nothingness is scrubbed from the kitchen floor. By a man in his twenties who wears white and two pairs of rubber gloves.

A hazard.
J is not Jae is not Jacob.

It is not J who goes to the room and sits in the chair. J is hidden in ink on the wall. She does not come in. Absence is not recorded until something has been missed.

My prayer card has been pinned to the middle of the board. It seems only I visit and look. I guess I have to answer it. My own prayer. Unless Jesus sneaks in with Alice when the door is locked and the stoup is empty.

I await their reply with afternoon tea.

My tape mixes up with confetti. I walk by as they shout one, two, three. The picture is taken. The cake sliced. Imagine that. To rest on the edge of an occasion.

Just imagine. A day where a picture turns you into something new. But not a hazard.
Just imagine. No lists. No thick black ticks. No desire to buy boxes and bags.
Just imagine. A bag of hearts new and rosy. Used before you crumble into dust.