in two days it will be 2020

everyone is talking about 
what they did this decade. my friends make lists 
on facebook. some of them wrote books.
some of them traveled to california. 
ate snails. became uncles. 
some of them survived. 
survive means simply 
to contintue to exist. 
i want to write a list 
where i just write
i survived i survived i survived 
over & over. on sundays while everyone else is at church
mom watches the news.
i sit & watch with her. we're silent.
she's knitting my youngest brother a new glove.
she finished the first one of the pair
the day before & it was too small.
he'll grow out of it soon
she lamented. green and blue thread.
on the news they compose panels to tell us 
all the different angles of terrible things.
the tv is on fire & the my mother's needles
click quietly together. we're sitting 
in the living room of a farm house built
almost a hundred years ago in a small town
where everyone my age dies of drug overdoses
& everyone says that's
such a shame such a shame.
this decade i moved away. i became 
pollen. i watched myself disperse 
again & again. i filled my mouth
with whatever dirt would call me home.
the tv is talking about violence.
a senator says violence, 
it's awful wherever it is 
whether is same race or same gender 
& what he means is 
i am on a tv show 
& you want a simple answer
or maybe it is just easier for him to imagine
violence as this kind of shifting energy. 
no true source.
he ends by saying that when he dies
he's going to ask god in heaven why he lets
so many people die.
an angel of death. i know i think of it that way too.
i make a list of people in i know 
who died this decade. i make a list 
of shadows i made. 
i make a list of days that closed in on me.
a list of kinds of mushrooms. a list of
mouths i entered & exited. a list of 
windows that belonged to only me. 
we sit in the quiet living room. 
i tell mom i'm scared of everything.
& she asks
of what?