While noise shuffles thoughts
like cards
I wonder how youth plunged
so far, so fast
and became this life,
how the fever of dreams
broke too soon
before I could have a chance
to flirt with them, court them
inhabit them.

When was this screaming infant
born in my chest
who now kicks at a heart
overworked by survival?
Thoughts are pencilled in
like meetings,
inspiration, fought for, like
a promotion,
dreams, untamed mares of the mind,
sprint past like screams:
you thought you heard something
but perhaps you didn’t.
Silence now.
Another day is smothered
before it had a chance to breathe.


Patricia Joan Jones