Consuming

"They're at that stage where they think
everything is for them,"
a friend once said about her children
who clutched with rounded fists
at any item in my house
that took their curiosity -
I think of it as I lurch through the fourth decade,
eating up my life and wanting to taste it all.
It's all mine and
I clamour for every experience with the
grabbing hands of a hungry toddler.
The diary is often full,
crammed with probably too much,
loaded with all good things
but those that make me heavy lidded in the mornings.
My head is full but on I go,
onto the next thing and the next and the next;
conversations across every medium pinging
every minute of the day.
No wonder you can't sleep, I think to myself
but writing poems about it is therapy.
I consume my world
and endlessly take photographs
of everything I pass
clogging up my camera roll to choking point.
Every high tide, every blossom,
ridiculous sky or funny sign or
view or tree or plant or meal.
I take mirror selfies to track my
progress,
perfect eyeliner wings and
tshirts in smaller sizes to post online.
The photos of my garden are relentless,
the same view on different days,
in case I forget what it looks like.
I store them up,
preserved in jars for future starvation periods -
to be unpacked and remembered, perhaps,
or maybe deleted in a fit of nevermind,
thrown like a paper plane from a viaduct,
hurtling towards nothingness:
empty albums ready to be filled with the next round of
diaryfuls of things.