If I weren’t mental

If I weren’t mental

If I weren’t mental,
I’d be spending today
in a secret laneway bar with my hand inside a man’s pocket
and my other hand around a drink with a hipster name
like ‘Pimms No. 1 jar’ (because good drinks come in mason jars, also daisies),
and I would be listening to a poetry slam
wherein tall men in plaid shirts would be having emotions
and afterward we would all share a pizza that only cost four dollars.

If I weren’t mental,
I’d be spending tonight
in a tucked away restaurant with lamps made from old carafes and half candles
and my foot would brush against another foot
but I would disappear into the night (in my easy, casual way),
and stand at the corner of the ocean
where I would find a long-lost lover waking from our mutual past
and laugh at all the things I thought had mattered once.

If I weren’t mental,
I’d be spending tomorrow
in a white cafe with six other heads behind their notebooks
and my words coming freely as I read the paper with the other eye
before I danced into the afternoon (which opportunity to seize next? so hard to choose)
and walked through a bookshop
where a hundred other people would be finding inspiration
and I would be one of them.

Which is why I’m on the couch
holding a paperback with the spine cracked open
and writing instead of doing
because that has to be enough.