tea leaves

how can i say anything to you?

tea leaf fumes changing the color of my throat

sometimes it’s difficult to do anything but

sit on the floor of the grocery store aisle and 

inhale the tea leaf fumes

until it’s dark into the night and you come

to take me home through fluorescent light

it’s dark and i’m clutching the jar to my chest

like clutching scars to my chest holding them in

sitting on the cement cold floor of central market

and are you going to let the cold come inside you too

we’re angry again in the grocery store 

running short on frozen berries and tempers

and i’m asking, how can i say anything to you?

you know there’s something disgusting about creating trauma 

and criminalizing the things that take it away

at the government — the norman rockwellian parents

who were supposed to give the healing but didn’t

so now it’s up to us — the voice she gave to you and me

except voices don’t do any good in an empty aisle

in an empty store — shelves getting wiped, and memories

what good is history to people who perpetually forget

and how can i say anything — to anyone?

when the sliding doors get locked and the pillagers take the freedoms

and there’s nothing left but poured out tea on the aisle floor