hallucination / resolution

One thought she could always lose a few pounds.
Another thought she should be making more money.
Still another doubted her talents, her hope, her heart.
There was another who felt she should be building houses
in Africa, or tutoring the underprivileged. She believed
that unless she saved something, or someone,
she wasn’t doing enough.
Another kept picking at her skin, pulling grey hair
from her scalp, contemplating a chemical peel or Botox.
Still another berated herself for her lack of motivation,
her television watching, her near-addiction to the screen,
how much useless trivia she knew about movie stars.
There was another who kept standing perfectly still,
waiting for the light to change, but would look up, disappointed,
when it didn’t, and felt impotent.
Another wished she was a better cook, a better writer,
a better wife, or lover, or mother, or daughter.
And another chided herself daily for not taking the singing lessons
she'd been thinking about forever, or kickboxing, or sculpture.
Each felt a little less than, unremarkable, anemic in their power.
They did not know that the others existed.
They sat in their living rooms and the couch was like an island
they imagined no one had ever heard of.
Their little cups of tea would grow cold, and they rose, uncertainly,
from their cushions and entered their bed and slept, eventually.
And when they dreamt they dreamt of their wholeness,
which is to say they dreamt of their nothingness,
who they were without what they firmly believed to be true
of their lusterless, shameful existence.
Asleep, they forgot exactly what it was they were so hell-bent
on transforming, and during that first hour after waking,
it stayed with them, this amnesia, through the stretch out of bed,
and the shower, and the first mug of whatever it was they drank.
And thus forgetting, they gazed absently through the kitchen window,
and a stream of light beamed down
and stayed there just long enough they could feel a warmth there,
a small circle just for them.