I built an IKEA bookshelf
Instead of going to therapy.
I was just so… Tired.
Of building invisible scaffolding
That crumbled
By the end of this week’s endless 9-5.
At least IKEA provides pictograms
Instead of puzzles That rely
Purely
On my own faulty memories
Of how I was originally put together
Decades and decades ago.
A shelf is a shelf.
Even if it’s built back to front
And upside down.
If it holds a book,
Or forgotten mug of tea,
That shelf is a success.
No one expects it to continually
Improve its worthiness.
There’s no ongoing support group for gravity
No plastic chips for each year it holds itself up.
It’s allowed to just stop.
It isn’t forced to unravel crime upon crime
Peeling back layers of cringe and hurt
Over and over until the grain
Is worn thin and sanded
Dry.
And, when gravity and haste
Inevitably
Take hold, no one blames the shelf
For falling down.
No one says
It should have tried harder
It should have foregone physics.
No one has ever blamed a shelf
For not being magic.
An IKEA shelf,
Cheaply made,
Is its own success.
No needs
No hesitation
No more discussions of its
Sapling years
Pollen-filled seasons
Or a drawn out diagnosis
Of at what point in time
Did everything go wrong.
Instead, it’s all so simple.
As clear as the first bright summer day
After you’ve been ill for so long.
Decipher the pictograms
With screw and allen wrench
Assemble something useful
Something simple
Something that fills a need.
Not a need looking for a reason
To misbehave.
So, anyway,
I’m getting a divorce.
How are you?
J.J. Stewart has recently been published in Abergavenny Small Press, Nat1's Audience Askew, Lucky Lizard Journal of Poetry, Dionysis Library, and Christmas Spirits Magazine. Under alternate pen names, their work has appeared in Blink Ink, the Portsmouth Square Occasional, and Calm.com, among various other publications.
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