A Slip of Steam

I’m looking for the release. The valve that lets just a little steam slip. Just a little. Enough to ease a heart or soothe a brain that has pulsed with pain for days now. I’ve tried rest, escape, fantasy, focus. I’ve tried you and writing and working harder. And working harder. And working harder.

I sit in a room with a white woman whose voice beats against the walls. She says nothing. She saturates space with her need to be seen, validated, important. I understand. I hate her. This is the room where we meet to decide the fate of family. She weighs risk in numbers. She holds the money. We are the only white people in the room. Her hand drapes over the shoulder of a black man. Your people don’t know what they need. We’ll wait till later, she says.

On the bus the man beside me says, never die alone. I pause. He goes on to speak of the time he strapped a bomb to his chest because the war of this world was too great. Too lonely. Never die alone, he says.

The clock clicks Ten and I slip between soft sheets. I want only to be here. Always. Among the rain. Alone. Well mostly. My blood pours through veins, a waterfall, a whisper. I can feel its rushing even here, in what is supposed to be stillness. There are words that cannot leave, songs that must be listened too, tears I try to cry. But there is only the rush. The urgency. The obsession. The quiet.