Today's poem is by Hadara Bar-Nadav

What Do You Do for a Living?
       

Full-time mother full-time smother full-time teacher full-time failure full-time nail biter full-time queen of never-ending laundry full-time cracked insomniac full-time I could bite my house in half with my family still sleeping inside it full-time white supremacists on TV full-time Camp Auschwitz t-shirts for sale full-time anxiety full-time rage full-time taker of pills full-time sending my pharmacist's kids to college full-time talk talk talk full-time full of shit full-time doom-scrolling apocalyptic news on demand full-time all of this data will drown me full-time headache ripping through my black dragon eye full-time Zoom meetings that absorb all available daylight full-time crawling towards death minute by minute full-time standing 6 feet apart from any human thing full-time worship of the bagworm I stand very close to and watch for days full-time chewing maple leaves in slow motion then tucking her speckled head inside her sticky twiggy cocoon full-time hiding myself inside the sticky cocoon of my day full-time chewing my skull from the inside out while hanging by a thread full-time raising my little white flag full-time not transforming into any winged thing full-time screw a pretty ending how do I begin again

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Copyright © 2023 Hadara Bar-Nadav All rights reserved
from Bennington Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission