Losing herself.

She woke to find it missing again this morning.
But the clock kept marching ostensibly forward
and with clothes and braided hair,
there was no time left to search.

It had never been very reliable.
Several years ago, it disappeared completely.

And she’d been forced to remake it entirely
from what she could remember.
But at the last minute, she’d attached a couple
aching old pieces that she liked quite a lot, now that she thought of it.

And this new one never knew perfect.
(She had tried, but the more glue she added,
trying to flatten the ugly,
the more it stuck up in protest,
and now it was sticky,
so she called it good enough and let it be)
But still it fit pretty well and she’d grown quite fond of it.

But lately,
it had this terrible habit of leaving her alone.
It didn’t like office work or air conditioning,
so sometimes it sat outside the building in protest, waiting for her,
waiting for open windows and banjo soul music.

And other times, it just wandered off, got lost
confused in all this moving,
wandering back to familiar alley ways and echo-y college buildings.

But she didn’t panic so much anymore.
After all this time,
she knew where to look.

After work,
she’d drive the long way home,
call her missing friend and talk too fast,
too eager to share the days filling up the space between them.

She’d make dinner slow, savoring the warmth of the stove under cold hands,
make a cuppa tea and curl up on the couch,
crack another spine and swallow up more black words on white page.

It would find it’s way back to her.