Signs/4
and hot, but you drank a large cup, and now, embarrassed,
you have to pee. You look around and see a sign that reads RESTROOMS,
with an arrow that points the way through a set of double doors.
You quietly rise and make you way towards them,
hoping that you’re not breaking a rule that you haven’t heard yet.
Through the doors and down the hall, you walk,
quietly slipping past the door where the choir is practicing.
They are singing AMAZING GRACE, HOW SWEET THE SOUND.
Amazing, is right, that the noise doesn’t
reach the room at the end of the hall.
You snicker. You think about what was said
in that room as you search for the RESTROOM.
Emotional maturity stops? How old were you when Rocky bought you
your first ROLLING ROCK?
Twelve? You’re almost twenty-one, so that means… eight years.
How can you be eight years younger
than your driver’s license says you are?
That’s impossible. Your thoughts turn back to your full bladder.
Just past the NURSERY, two doors on either side of the RESTROOM sign,
white block letters on institutional brown label the rooms they guard.
You’re hurtled back in time, and you wonder,
why wasn’t the choice made easy then?
You want to say, “See? This is the reason. It wasn’t my fault.”
But, you feel that isn’t the truth. You close your eyes for a moment,
and in your line of mental vision,
you see the words from the other room that say
GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY…TO ACCEPT.
You open your eyes and walk through the door marked G I R L S.
©March 2005, Sugah.
(JLK)