Untitled 

Aileen Santos

The Morning Sun screams worries 
      Forgotten since yesterday
  While stringy pieces of lint sneak
      Up on my fleece cardigan again and
  Ball pointed pens smudge thick blue
Ink resulting in my frustration
		Because I turned
Over to new emotions when I switched
	The cassette to Side B

More letters postmarked with discontent
	Asking, no, mandating green sheets
From my e m p t y paycheck from 
A part-time job/career minus the paper hat
     I wore running after the 7:49 New Jersey
		Transit Bus.


On easy-to-clean vinyl chairs I sat letting
     My eye lids fall heavy with desire for
The Sun to appear outside today
To help me remember last night's episode of
The X-Files where Extra-Terrestrial
Chemicals are slipped into our tap water.
I see my destiny laid out under cloud-like
	Comforters…slipping slowly into
Nightmares where I'm stuck on dark
   Windey roads and all the gas station attendants
Give wrong directions.

The dim light of my refrigerator gives 
    A good background to the funeral
Of recently bought, already rotten 
	Refrigerated vegetables

The TV flashes a number on the bottom 
	   Of the screen while Babies cry
Hunger kills innocent people
	I pick up the phone but notice that money 
Issues still make no sense to me
	But I know that next time I'll try
Not to fall for Infomercials that are definitely
	Subliminal….