Held Hostage by My Engagement Calendar
Omnipotent, you control me; omniscient, you know more than I do; omnipresent, I never escape your grasp.
Article voiceover
Hostage to My Engagement Calendar
Omnipotent, you control me.
Omniscient, you know more than I do.
Omnipresent, I never escape you.
I calendar, schedule, and engage
my calendar, schedules, and engagements:
birthdays of friends and family,
birthdays of friends spouses,
wedding anniversaries,
anniversaries of deaths,
lest my friends endure alone
that date that lurks and lays in wait.
Re-order from Instacart and Amazon.
Follow rules for airline miles,
protocols for credit card points.
Expirations threaten, and I fear
I will miss out on that
final consumption, already
clearing my throat for
the death rattle.
I agonize over organizing.
Is there no end in sight?
Obligations expand to fit
the precious gray matter that remains.
How much can I absorb
before to-do’s, don’t
allow me to savor each day,
always one day less than yesterday,
equals one fewer tomorrow.
Renew driver's license.
Reinstall software.
Review instructions,
Regard interactions.
Rescue dogs.
Refer friends.
Reach out.
React.
Rely, Reply, Re-Lie,
My Mercury is always in retrograde.
Reconsider, reassess, reassemble, rediscover, rekindle, rewrite, reiterate, recalculate, rearrange, reabsorb,
rebel, reason, realign,
renew, realize,
rejuvenate, rejoice.
And I don’t even get to start fresh,
to choose a new papyrus every December,
one with new sayings,
and new pictures,
and new colors,
and reason to hope
next year will be different.
Instead, I’m tethered to my devices,
smothered by the debris of digital Groundhog Day:
Repeat, no end date;
repeat, no end date;
repeat, no end
until death do us part.
Who is the owner of my world, and who is owned?
So true!
Love that line "I agonize over organizing."
And "till death us do part."