Leather Chair

To sit once again in my leather chair;
all I want is to sit in my leather chair.

It was modern, squared off on all sides;
sat in the living room, surrounded
by piles of junk.

I got it for a song
at a local furniture store.

Sat in it for years
then abandoned it when I fled
the piles of junk, ashamed of
what it had become:

a throne of sorts,
chocolate brown, cushions crushed by
my heavy, desperate weight.

Went back for it and threw it away
years later, threw it away with a pang,
threw it away in a filthy dumpster
and wiped my hands of it and thought
no more about it until
today.

Now I’m sitting
in a different chair, in a distant house;
one hundred and fifteen pounds lighter;
numbed to my legs, almost but not quite
paralyzed; still the same person
nonetheless.

I wish I had
my leather chair back —

and you know, this time I’d cherish it
so much more than I used to
back when it was surrounded by trash
and falling apart, stained and ruined
by my heavy, desperate weight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T