it struck
like a flash, while sitting down
to pee
and lifting the lid to find
my mother’s urine
and two sheets of two-ply
folded at the seam, floating,
the memory most mornings of
anxiety that another’s
would splash on me,
her informing me of her steps to not
waste water,
and knowing, now,
that I can flush, and relieve myself
that her inability to throw things away
was even more pervasive than I first recalled,
that it seeped into her every action
and was tied to
her very physiology 

unsure of what exactly
it means
but sure as hell that
I’m going to tell it to my therapist tomorrow