procrastinating
I flit around my house like a restless spirit,Picking up stray dishes and putting down books
In places they were never intended to go.
Outside, the oppressive heat wraps its arms too tightly around my house,
And sinks down to lie beside the muggy stickiness
That in the summer months never quite goes away.
On days like these,
Though my work calls to me insistently from where it waits,
Dressed in black and white, but still festively adorned
With strips of red and blocks of green,
I resist and turn my face away from the overly warm room
Where my computer works tirelessly at filling the space
With the whirring of the fans that cool only itself.
I drift through the valleys between the mountains of unaddressed chores,
Avoidance-cleaning and procrastinapping.
On days like these,
Until the sun begins to set,
I am a paragon of malfunctionality.
My ineffective, out-of-order brain incapable
Of wringing some semblance of discipline from itself,
And some action from my sweaty, lethargic limbs.
Then, when the relentless brilliance of the sun has ceased resisting
And slid beneath the cloak of the horizon,
I fizzle to life like a string of solar party lights.
I fling open the doors and windows,
Allowing in a cool breeze that tickles across my skin like a lover’s caress,
And dive into the pages, scattering red lines and wrong lines before me,
A nocturnal predator seeking my natural prey.
© mjc 19 January 2020
