THE ITCH OF A STIFF SWEATER

Freckled toast is all we eat here.
The alarm clock contributes it rude opinion
at some awful hour, good for the body's rhythm,
and we eat the same whole-wheat toast.
We take the same horse-pill vitamins.
No one has to find the keys
because they're always on the same hook.
Today is Tuesday, the ninth day of this week.
You go off to your job as usual,
and my intended path is the same,
but the monotony of living is beginning to fray
my every nerve--a tick in every blink--
so I duck into a matinee,
a sick love story about things that never happen,
and it drives this wedge into me,
pries open this little cavern in my brain
where I hate the vitamins and wheat toast
and I want to hide all your keys and plant sunflowers
but I don't have any seeds so I drove home
and unlock the door and mess the house up,
I throw the CDs around and overturn a plant
and rip the bed sheets off and jump on the mattress
and dump the parsley down the drain
and I go to the store and I buy cheese doodles
and cans of soda and greasy things
and I eat them until you come home from work,
you're upset and I see you start to cry
and I start to feel bad for the mess I've made
but you take me in your arms and say,
"thank you, I forgot how to breathe."