Count your blessings

Some days naturally give you a little perk in your step.

Others, well, others not so much. Some of the other days, well, you start to let your backpack hunch you over and you shuffle your way through the puddled streets past the train stop, ten minutes exact to make your way to college, past the chicken shop where you pinch your nose and look the other way, trying not to breathe in the stench of slaughter, hits you like a human death, but immune like to the news, you just walk on by, past the lady with the empty cup, shaking it outside of Greggs, listening to the emptiness rattle, like her old bones barely holding her weight under her ragged coat. And you drown out the noise of the hungry babies wailing for mummies attention, you focus, focus on each step trying to keep to the cracks, might as well, you don’t believe in good luck anymore at this rate. And is it bad that you feel a little better, you thank yourself for the roof over your head, for the bread in your mouth, for the clean clothes and the friends you can count on both hands. You only recall these things, the bare necessities, when they’re put on a plate, to be traded in a blink. And why are four walls so important? Maybe because they constantly changed shape when you were little, 10, shift the Rubix cube, 12, shift, walls change again, a bigger bed, 14 shift  back to the walls you know, same city different den, after different den, and they’re all the same, what's the big deal, a roof over your head, but the roof's not the same, more change, more change, more change, you don’t want anymore, hold onto it for dear life, so maybe that's what's most important, staying the same? But what if you applied that to the days of the week. What if that’s what's most important, that everything stays the same? a frown, a hunch, a hollow feeling in your gut, hesitation, short stifled breaths, anticipation, no answers. At least its to be expected, no disappointment when the smile vanishes, for it never came in the first place. only come if you plan to stay, only come over if you plan to stay. she says she doesn’t want your change, she doesn’t want it, so stay the same and walk on by, bury your noses in your pashminas and shuffle past the puddles, past the same stop on the same train with the same faces, they’re all the same, frowns, bagged grey eyes, numbed muscles clenched from overnight stresses, no moment of silence on the mind. but at least its to be expected . its the same expression on the same face, your reflection. count your blessings, before they’re all gone.