Liam Barr

The thing you meant to get back to is still there.
You didn't quit it. You never got to it.

Every day it goes to the bottom.
Under the replies and the job someone needs by five.
Under whatever can be closed off before you go home.

Those get done first.
And the day goes with them.

You reach your own work at nine at night.
Tired. Half there. An hour before bed.

You put everything else ahead of it.
Not once did that feel like a decision.

You know what matters to you.
Your day says otherwise.

A friend keeps at something that's hurting them.
You want them to stop.

You wouldn't call them weak.
You'd tell them what you've watched it do.

That lands. Nothing else does.

Then it's your own habit
and the voice changes.

Disgust. A verdict. The same lecture as last time.

That voice has been running for years.
The habit is still here.

Shame was never persuasive.
Not on anyone. Not on you.

The lecture has had its turn.
The kinder voice still works.

There's news coming.
You don't know which way it goes.

Your shoulders are up near your ears.
They've been there since you heard.
You read the same paragraph three times.

Nothing has happened yet.
The flinch got here first.

Then it arrives and it's fine.
Or it isn't and you meet it already sore.

Either way you took it twice.
It only ever came once.

The news gets one hit.
The rest of it has been you.