late night green

It's nights like this
that despite twenty years
and a lush history of lovers
and an otherwise joyous life
I feel once again
like the fat girl in
the cafeteria that no one
wants to slow dance with.

It's musical chairs
and no one wants to be
the last one left standing
the last one picked in
gym class the last one
left sitting on the bleachers

I'm used to grumbles in my belly
but now it's the rumble lower
the root chakra, the depth
and breadth and center of my
soul and my body there is this
warm, vacant holding place
that lies barren and empty
and above I can't help but
feel unnatural with hands at my
side when I am a born mother
without a child to hold
without a family of my own

I can't buy these things
I can't write business plans or
formulate schemes and time-lines
There is nothing I can do, no press
release, no well-thought out attack
there is nothing I can do
no book I can read nor write
no pill I can take nor spit out
no degree to achieve or certificate to earn
that will bring me the things
I want more than anything else
on this Earth

And I wonder
on night's like this
what makes me so unworthy
or so undeserving
to not have the very thing
that I desire above all others
the same thing I see millions
take for granted everyday
loves laid fallow
children shaken, neglected
why is it that I
have not been allowed
these gifts?
This key to the garden?

I don't believe in God
but I take this personally.