Some nights I get unreasonable. Some nights
The ceiling gets a little too low, and the walls too close,
And the light at the end too far off,
And I forget all my careful planning
And want it all now, true love and golden glory
And balls that end at midnight and fortunes coming true.
It's time, I say, it's time, I could grab my purse and coat and just run,
Run run run down that street underneath the cold stars.
I forget that
Running makes me cough,
And my coat is thin,
And I have a year before I can graduate,
Before I can leave and not come back.
I forget also that a diploma is not a sword and steed,
That Florida is not Oz or Neverland, that I don't do well with
Stress, or surprises, and that the life that I have picked out,
quiet and fulfilling, a librarian's desk and a few published novels,
Is just the way I like it.
I have not seen much of the world. I suspect it is very nice.
Some nights I get unreasonable, and I am terrified of "very nice."
I want a wild and ridiculous and unlikely life, I want to
Slay a many-headed beast, kiss the prince,
ride a fog-grey horse at full gallop across a moor,
Only I
don't, really. Really, what I want is
Some hot tea,and sleep. Really, what I want is true love, yes,
But just the common, lovely, comfortable kind,
And a home with pictures on the walls,
And the assurance that, if I were to one day leave this world,
There would be a hole left.