Ready start

Click, click, click.

White screen fills with letters.
Each one tries to give meaning,
each next one changes it.
The one that was first is already previous.

Every day brings something new and becomes past.

* * *

I stand in my clothes ready to start.

Ready start, ready start, ready start…

Though the signal fell a thousand times,
once it happens that I won’t start.
This first, this second time and third…

I won’t get up.

Every day brings something new and becomes past.

* * *

I know that yesterday will bring nothing new.
But I recall certain moments:

I’m a child, standing at the store counter.
This difficult word “strawberries” -
in my mind I say it freely.

When I try out loud, my throat tightens.

Stra, straaa.
I’m sweating, I feel humiliation.

So I let people who stood behind me go ahead.