not enough

is enough.

Sometimes

half-done

is better than perfect.

Sometimes

you just need a break.

A

rest.

Bible?

Open heart, head empty.

don’t think

too much.

No worries.

Lilies in a field.

Sparrows?

S p a c e

Let go and let God

sounds cheesy

i like cheese.

mozzarella? or

parmesan.

sometimes, not enough is enough, because

is our enough ever enough anyway?

enough is starting to look

like a word that

doesn’t

exist.

Do

I?

Yes.

I exist.

My existence is good.

Creation is an overflow of Love

which means i was created by Love, for Love, to Love

and that is never too much.

i am not too much

i am not too little

i am just right.

I don’t need to overexplain that part.

this poem isn’t

enough. I need it to end

artistical-ly (?)

Sometimes,

not enough

is enough.

Sometimes,

enough is

Too Much.

And now I sit in darkness,
picking up the pieces
that were once my life.

Why do I feel so broken, so changed, so different?
The drizzle has blown in and clouded my brain

Picking up the pieces
of the window that
once made up my life.

All the fragmented pieces,
the colors of the sun -
Shattered, and Scattered,
Smattered, Shadowed, Seclusion,

I sit within the darkness,
piecing into one
the window that was once my life, now
a kaleidoscope of dreams.

It was Tuesday, and that meant that Barbara’s mom, Beth, made green bean casserole for dinner. “It’s cheap, and easy, and fast,” asserted Beth proudly. “And boy, is it good!”

Barbara heartily disagreed. To her, the dish was slimy, stinky, and disgusting. Firstly, it was made with vegetables - Barbara’s arch-nemesis - and secondly, it contained the worst ingredient of all - mushrooms. She shuddered at the thought.

It didn’t use to be this way. Barbara had vague memories of an old life, filled with love, laughter, and food made completely from scratch. Her mother, smiling at her over the freshly-baked whole chicken, dished large scoops of warm, buttery mashed potatoes onto her plate. Her father, although reticent at times, was always willing to help his little girl, and from the other side passed her the sauteed asparagus (of which she ate little) and thick, brown gravy to drizzle on top.

And then came the argument. Barbara had only blurred memories of the occasion, mostly about the feelings in the room. Her mom was cold that day, and her dad even more so than usual; she said something sarcastic, he snapped back; hot words were exchanged on both sides; her dad stormed off, slammed the front door, and was gone. Aside from these fuzzy remembrances, two prominent things stuck in her memory: it was Tuesday, and they were eating green bean casserole.

The next week it was worse. Not only did they have the green bean casserole again, they also ate it on packing boxes. The week after that, they were in a run-down apartment on the other side of town, again with the dish that Barbara despised.

She soon learned that arguing with her mom’s new weekly tradition just made everything worse. Every time she complained, she would receive an extra helping of both casserole and complaints about the situation from her mother, as well as dish duty later on. And if there was anything Barbara hated worse than the smell of green bean casserole, it was the smell of the lukewarm green bean casserole water running off the dishes into the sink below.

Every Tuesday, Barbara woke up with a headache and a twisted-feeling in her stomach, rode to school on her rusty yellow scooter, day-dreamed of rotisserie chicken and pot-stickers and beef jerky in class, and wished the day would never end. However hard she daydreamed, school would eventually come to a close, and she would drag her feet to her scooter and slowly ride home with an ever-increasing sense of dread.

Today was no different. Barbara rode home from school, lugged her scooter up the two-and-a-half flights of rickety apartment stairs, chucked the yellow conveyance by the door, and went inside. Hollering a hasty greeting to her mother, she went to her small room, flung her well-worn backpack into the corner, and shoved her newly-graded homework into the trash. Then she sat down at her desk with her aching head in her hands and imagined the day when she would not go to school or eat anything she didn’t want to. Or ride a scooter. She hated her scooter, too.

“Barbaraaa,” floated a voice from the kitchen.

“Coming!” the girl in question shouted in return.

Shoving back the squeaky, wooden chair at her equally-creaky desk, Barbara heaved a massive sigh. “Why does mom keep this up?” she muttered to herself, grumpily. “I don’t believe she even enjoys it. OW!” she yelped, rubbing her throbbing head as a painful pang pierced her brain. “I stood up too fast.” She sighed again, and groaned. “Well, here goes nothing,” she thought with a grim smile, as she headed off to the kitchen, which also served as their dining room.

“Hey, mom,” said Barbara, trying her best to smile. The smell of the green bean casserole filled the room. She tried not to gag as she grabbed a blue chipped ceramic plate and scooped on a spoonful of the green concoction. It seemed soupier than normal. “How was work?”

“Oh, it was ok,” responded her mother with a whine. “You know, the usual. Diane wouldn’t listen to me, and then Richard was being an absolute jerk, and I have a headache. And Jenny brought cheesy peas and rice for lunch, and microwaved it. Who would do that? It smelled so horrible, you know how I hate cheesy peas and rice, and I know she did it just to annoy me.”

Beth prattled on and on, seemingly glad for a chance to finally have someone to talk to.

Barbara listened half-heartedly to the string of her mother’s complaints, mostly about her coworkers, and sometimes about her work. Occasionally Beth made a snide comment about her ex-husband and what a wonderful job he had and the money and the cars and the old lifestyle and what a traitor he was when he ran off with a younger, prettier woman and left them all to starve alone.

And Barbara daydreamed about rotisserie chicken.