at home

I drag my feet over doing when at home. I only 

lap up happy endings, sometimes knit, pee frequently;

By eight or so, I'm berating myself on another day wasted.

What else? I spend time talking, a bit a day.

My impatience held in a vice-like grip, I try explain;

When it escapes, I am savage or escape.

I've no wisdom to defend this with.

Family, they itch in your bones—

Try to be aloof, or strategize, or just let them be,

But it still matters enough to fight.

Or to lie, to evade the non-negotiable.

Because they are not just the Opposition.

I know why they resist, I know why I must, should, will listen,

I know why the whole damn thing's so bloody hard.

They know too, and so we're every day angrier,

Always shouting, never leaving,

Never thinking violence without thinking regret.

—Don't get me wrong: we make each other miserable.

But in a quicksand/together-forever sort of way.