Photo by Lillian Aff / North by Northwestern

I click along like a broken bike

with the chain misaligned

I work like a computer

overheating from the stress

I’m not sure why I’m trying so hard

or why I feel no progress

I’m pretty sure it’s pointless,

like my mom planting tomatoes right before a storm

but I was raised by her, and

“anything worth doing is worth overdoing”

even if I’m agitated, like a blender

on high when she used to make me smoothies

even if I live sleepless

like she does on summer nights when I don’t come home

even if I cry, like I can never

remember her doing when I was a kid

it’s for my own good