Day Three Without Nicotine...

…and I feel like a cinderblock is tied to my brainstem. I guess to say *no nicotine* is a half-truth because I *am* wearing a replacement-therapy patch, but it is not the same. My thoughts are the consistency of mashed potatoes; a perma-frown shrouds my face; my right knee bounces to 1/64 time, and I’m rattling the bones of this old house. Perhaps I will gather them in both hands and toss them down; see if they can tell me anything about the future.

Because, right now, my future seems uncertain at best.

Why is it that we are all defined by the jobs we hold? Have you ever been to a party or met someone for the first time and the first question asked of you is: “What do you do?” Now, I know what the person is really asking, but I’ve always wanted to answer, “Well, I do a lot of things. First and foremost, I wake up, go to the bathroom, brew a pot of coffee, and take the dog out to pee. Most importantly, however, I dream. What is it that you do?”

I want to tell people that I am a professional purveyor of all things beautiful, that I pay attention to a walnut when it falls from the tree in my backyard, that I know some things die so that others may live. And I know this is true when, days later, I watch a squirrel, perched high in the hemlock, carefully peel away the walnut’s thick, green skin. I want to tell people that I think in line breaks and stanzas, that I agonize over the words “a” and “the,” that I dream in metaphor and simile, that these things feed me even though they don’t put food on my table or pay my student loans.

I am looking for a job, one that will pay me an hourly wage or a salary, but I already have an occupation.

And so I leave you with another poem.

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Gourd

What you see is reflection:
dry and brown, skin pattern
in riverbeds, dead of thirst,
mottled and marred, old sores
from a careless discard
between the neighbor’s railroad
ties and the old woodpile’s
long left side.

Battle scars raised
with rot, we are
razed to ruins.
Of course,

it is ornamental;
it is unfulfilled;
it’s the inconclusive
dream of what could be

a squirrel feeder
or a fine bird home.
But it hangs alone,
so fragile, hollow, spent—
dependant on the cool wind,
its whim, its shift.