The Art of Disappearing by Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don’t I know you? say no. When they invite you to the party remember what parties are like before answering. Someone is telling you in a loud voice they once wrote a poem. Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate. Then reply. If they say We should get together say why? It’s not that you don’t love them anymore. You’re trying to remember something too important to forget. Trees. The monastery bell at twilight. Tell them you have a new project. It will never be finished. When someone recognizes you in a grocery store nod briefly and become a cabbage. When someone you haven’t seen in ten years appears at the door, don’t start singing him all your new songs. You will never catch up. Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second. Then decide what to do with your time. Naomi Shihab Nye, from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)

The Wasted Years by Karin Gottshall

The wasted years were filled with movies, dreams about Venice, bread and raspberry jam. A hundred books that drifted by like laundry blown loose from the line, their pages unmarked and remembered only vaguely. I fell asleep reading. I listened to Verdi and whole afternoons were gone. I worked: boxing chocolate, sweeping floors, asking would you like whipped cream on that? There were dogs and cats: I looked into their faces. I thought if I’d been a painter I would have purpose now: I would paint saints, I would paint insects, I would paint the coffee shop filled with ghosts in the morning. I went to art supply stores and smelled the charcoal, bought myself thick blank books that were never filled. My shoes wore out and I found another pair just the same. My recipe for peace was a baked pear and my remedy for sorrow was a smoke. My friends called at regular intervals and we spoke about the past as though it were a puzzle we’d yet to solve. I lay in the sun and didn’t care what happened. Birdsong poured like sticky liquid from the trees and stuck one moment to the next, and I felt my life adhere and slide like syrup as I fell asleep under the thousand shades of green.