I’m Marie Kondo-ing my condo
a can-do attitude
a consultant named Cait Shood
(her name rhymes with GOOD) and yes
I’ve been paralyzed by
Barbies and clutter from
Empty Nest Syndrome ever since
my daughter grew up and left the house
a decade goes fast
look Reese Witherspoon
in Seventeen magazine circa 1999
as ambitious ingenue Tracy Flick in Election
a construction paper choo-choo with
happy animals from daycare Dr. bills for
G.A.D. F41.1 & Major Depression Partial
F.33.4 my face at her wedding
Migraine Not Intractable G43.0 with
Cait’s aura glows radiates sparks joy
I’m finally making decisions
an unexpected turn of events
with the KonMari Method
the power of now
& the life changing magic of tidying up
I’ll be living a beautiful life
time flies shopping with my daughter
serotonin seeking & buying
anything and everything
a black hole on the edge
spaghettifies you
slowing down time
organizing from the inside out
2016 dense gravitational suck
compressed adrenalized benzodiazepine
spaghetti brain pharmaceuticals
Radical Acceptance
stretching out my smile muscles
Cait’s encouraging energy and light
lifting the entropy with ORDER
good things on the horizon
it’s not too late
Sally Weston Ziph’s poems and short stories have appeared in The Five-Two, Bear River Review, Third Wednesday, Rat’s Ass Review, and Quartet, among others. She is a University of Michigan Hopwood Award winner and received her MFA degree from Miami University’s Low Residency MFA program, where she was the first runner-up for the 2020 Miami American Academy of Poets Prize. She works as a librarian at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Featured Artwork:
Watching Over the Town
Linda Hawkins is a self-taught watercolor artist and photographer. She enjoys the beauty of nature and captures it through the camera lense and paint brush. Her visual art has appeared in various literary magazines, including: Flash Frog, The Jupiter Review, Pithead Chapel, Acropolis Journal, Wrongdoing Magazine, Moss Puppy Mag, and Fish Barrell. She can be found on Twitter: @lindamayhawkins; website: lindamayhawkins.com; and her Etsy shop: etsy.com/shop/lmhoriginals