Add the digits.
I never knew someone
with a degree like yours
framed on your boring wall
to forget simple addition.
One plus four is five.
Five is not quite good.
Five is not like three or nine.
 
I want to ignore your whys.
I want to ignore your prying
into what makes
good-good
and
bad-bad.
 
I do not have an answer you want.
 
Why would I trust you?
You with your warm office
and your too many plants.
How do you even remember
to water them with all the notes
you have to take about me?
Maybe you know
they are thirsty when it is Tuesday
because I am here again
for my hour of staring
out your window.
 
Tuesday is not quite good.
Tuesday is not like
Wednesday or Saturday.
 
Your couch is warm
from your last client’s
-unconscious-
-preconscious-
-conscious-
thoughts
or their sweaty chafing thighs.
 
I want to use your hand sanitizer
and Marie Kondo your desk.
This place does not spark joy.
I love to unplug your fountain,
even when it’s plugged in
behind the couch
I always sit on.
I move the couch,
tug the chord.
Silence.
 
I wonder if this office
feels
different from your armchair
or desk.
I wouldn’t dare
change my seat.
I have a good view
of the window from here.
 
I want your coworker to return
the book they borrowed
nine sessions ago.
Nine sessions is 63 days.
Six and three is still nine.
Nine is only and always good.
So for now it is fine.
 
“Fine,”
I say when you ask
how anything is.
 
Ask them
to place it where it goes
at least before next week
because that makes week ten.
Ten is one.
One is not quite bad
like four or six.
But still,
not like nine or three.
Ten weeks is seventy days
and seven is not good either.
 
I’m not even looking at the pond
outside of the window.
I’m looking THROUGH the ducks.
Yes, the ones
you compulsively ask me to count.
I don’t want to count.
I do not like numbers
or ducks.
Those are no longer small
or cute enough
to hold in your hands.
Plus I know
there are not three or nine.
 
Fuck Freud.
Fuck his
couch time
conversation,
complexes,
and ego.
 
I hate that my phone
changes fuck to duck.
I prefer geese.
If it has to be ducks,
I only like the tiny ones.
I miss those
little ugly ducklings
quacking in a stupid row.
 
Reminder of my own
fourteen years of awkward
Freudian
psychosexual
fucked-up
phases.
Which were not quite good.
But maybe,
not quite ALL bad,
you think.
 
None of the ducks
can get enough bread.
I wish they were in this office
on your dumb sweaty thigh
brain picking couch.
Maybe my thighs wouldn’t sweat
if I ate less bread.
But I don’t anyways.
Even Jesus loved carbs.
 
Fuck your waiting room
with the front desk lady
always on a
sad
ketogenic
diet.
 
I’d take a pond baptism.
I’d take an ugly duckling communion.
Perhaps I’ll bring wine next week
to pour on your stupid party plants
and your skinny bitch coworker
at the desk,
and the other one too.
 
I know they
will not return
your fucking book.