how am i still here?

So you are not the laying next to me,

You are not at the grocery store efficiently finding bulk items while I stand, held tilted up and to the left wishing I felt okay sucking my thumb in decay of the store.

What could you be doing right now?

Your not the one I wake up next to

And I stir my own peanut butter

Your not pushing your head into me

What could you be doing right now?

And no is what I’m saying

But your still the ‘you’ in all my poems

I only sing our love songs

And when I am trying to be in the reality of [having 2 parents- who each had 2 parents- leading us to 8 great grandparents and 10 people who had to make a baby for me to be alive….. who also had two parents---- 16- to 32—to 64- to 128- 256-512 ]….. all these people made babies whose genes are swimming in me---it’s you I think of.

What could you be doing right now?

Then I wonder if I can hold the sadness of all the broken bodies-loves- in my genes and it might be the same question as if I can hold our fragmented cells-

Checking my phone-busy busy busy- checking my phone- distraction-checking my phone.