Routine

I eat three portions of fruit at breakfast

(banana, two oranges, small bowl of blueberries).

I drink one glass of water and then another.

I look at the piles of books on the table

the floor

the bedside

the window sill,

that I do not read.

I bury my face in the fluff of my cat, fill my nose with the smell of her spit, before the rasp of her tongue cleans away my human stink.

I join a group, spend an evening a week clouding mirrors with dance-sweat, falling over my feet.

I post up in the corner of the room where my husband works, observe his meetings in silence, learn his work-self’s cadence, patter across our keyboards together separately.

I am always dehydrated, always faintly worried about it.

I go to bed, wait first for the silence then for the swish of the door

the regular thud of cat paws on bedside

tinkle of name-tag against glass

sipping, lapping at the water, a thief in the night.

Light finds the cracks around the blind.

I open the door.

I invite you in.