The Tahiti Button

You know
that moment
when
you know
you can push
the button and
buy the ticket to
Tahiti?

Even though
you’ve believed
you couldn’t or
shouldn’t
a thousand times
before?

And then you
push it?

You know
that voice
that says
you’ve fallen
short,
you’re not
who you’d hoped
to be
by now?

The voice
you’ve heard
a thousand times
before?

And there’s proof,
right?
That towering
pile of
“coulds” and “shoulds,”
but you
don’t or won’t?

I’m starting to
wonder
what those
voices are
hiding.

I’m starting to
wonder
if there’s a
“do” and “will”
button
and

pushing it
is like
pushing the
Tahiti Button.

(Photo by Kristopher Roller, UnSplash)

 

Entitled

“Entitlement” needs a
press agent and
I’m applying for
the job.

Let’s start with
you.

In spite of
bad press
to the contrary,
you are entitled
to be
entitled.

Let me
count the ways, or
at least
a few of them.

You are entitled
to prefer a
motel bed and a
rundown dive
diner and a
waitress named
Beatrice

to a backpack
and a campfire
and a tent.

You are entitled
to stoke your
soul
at the
Spotted Cat Club
on Frenchmen Street,
listening to
Trombone Shorty
and
Leroy Jones,

instead of
hiking the
Pacific Crest.

You are entitled
to sit, alone,
on the business end
of your couch
potato patch,
waiting,
because you have
a poem to write
and
your Muse
is running late,

instead of
going to Roger’s
Super Bowl hangout, or
mowing the lawn or
re-ordering
the garage.

Or vice versa,
or all of it,
or nothing at all,
for a day or
a week or
a year.

You are entitled
to be
you.

(Photo by Vidit Goswami, UnSplash)