Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Diana Action Hero

I am in the den,
sitting in the paisley chair,
waiting for Ricky.
Two nights ago
I walked into a swimming pool
in the kitchen.
There was water on the floor and countertop,
water dripping off the edges like some fancy
Zen waterfall at a day spa.
Water everywhere.
I grabbed about forty paper towels and started mopping up,
running to the trash,
and then running back for more.
When I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere,
with paper,
I went and got my yellow beach towel
from the bathroom hall closet
and started sopping it up.
I couldn’t believe it.
We had just put a new faucet in because the old one was leaking
so we thought our problem was solved.
Now I’ve learned we haven’t solved anything.
Lately, that seems to sum up how everything’s been going.
Problem after problem.
Sometimes I imagine myself as a kind of cartoon Wonder Woman
in a video game
leaping over
giant holes,
while grenades and fireballs are being thrown at me.
With each hole I leap,
my score goes up.
But as the game progresses
the jumps becomes bigger,
the balls of fire,
hotter,
and the way out,
more and more unreachable.
I am tired of problems.
Problems that never resolve.
Problems that never should have been mine to solve
in the first place.
I want to sit down for once and know
that things really are fixed.
I want to feel the sun on my face and put my head back
and just breathe
without fear of a goblin jumping
down my throat.
I want to lay down my sword
and hand in my Warrior Princess crown
and instead pick up my guitar
and let the notes carry me away like they used to
when the only problem I had
was getting the dog
to lie down.