Push

There are days when you get 
some good traction and the load 
you push, though it hasn't gotten 
lighter, slides forward. But 
there are other days when
the stone doesn't budge. 
You make a notch in the earth 
with your shoe or find some other 
way to prop it up for a while, 
so you can nap or go eat 
chocolate-covered popcorn
and get your fingers sticky,
which means you'll have to wash up
at the sink, by which time you realize 
what you actually want to do is take 
a long, hot shower, use the bar of 
jasmine soap you were saving for some 
forgotten reason. Just a little 
time to breathe without bracing
for the next thing to drop,
for the next addition to the weight
you never saw coming. You know
relief can come in the in-between,
uneven spaces, some mercy small
as a smile or a touch of a hand.
Though the weight hasn't grown lighter 
you are trying to understand how it 
doesn't necessarily mean you have failed 
at the carrying, that your life isn't 
just the color and shape of this stone.