improved since my teen years, I hope

There is no more room
in her head. The seeking words
of Sartre and Weil share holding space with
phantom tollbooths
and dark elves and spacemen and
busty maidens.

There is no more room.

Areas for restarts annexed,
quarters for new skills occupied,
places for trying once more (with feeling) let out.

[The overturned tray on the cheap cold floor.
That night of a drunken pass, a later lie.
A failed evening in a bathroom, small and hot.
These things and others pay dutiful rent.]

She dreams of a contraption
to allocate these resources to those with greatest need;
New Leaves and Fresh Starts on welfare
with their crying children tugged behind.