The Best Women of my Generation

I've seen the best women of my generation swallowed whole by student loans, sleeping on the 7:10am train to the city to rattle click at computers, transfixed by screens and ringing phones, then take a quick lunch to push $12 plates of flavorful garbage into their tightened stomachs.

I've seen the best women of my generation fret about the blisters on their heels from their high-heels, instead of the War, the environment or genocide in Sudan. She wants a baby, a new boyfriend, a cat, a dress, anything but what she has now.

The money she owes she fights her mother for, in between car insurance and impulsive buys--like bungee jumping for her birthday. She's an escape artist of her own making, wondering about life after death, and reading best sellers. If she takes the pills, will that make her happy?

Her mom's got bills too, and she calls to say she's moved back in with the stepdad you never wish you had. When sex and the image of her stepdad cross wires, the bile rises to her throat and now no where to go home to, to sleep on the couch and eat mom's cooking if he's there, and San Francisco, the job, or the current boyfriend turns out to be as palabable as a fried egg on a full stomach.

I've seen the best woman of my generation have panic attacks about the furniture they can't sell, the intimacy she cannot grasp a hold of, and the beat up '88 honda that sputters, but she needs.

This ugly, heavy replica of life

is everything but

life.