My future & my past are essentially the same:
whether it is me or her riding in the back seat, I still have to ask permission
of my mother or daughter if I can go anywhere. I traded
in my happiness like a receipt
for defective batteries, & the world keeps turning
without me. I wish it were as simple
to lure my happiness back in as it is
to fill a grocery bag—or better, to drop it: the contents
spilling across the sidewalk, oranges
against gray cement, & I would. I would take them
to the highest point in a fifty mile radius—those
life choices—drop them from the top
of a building, & wait for them to strike to pavement.