Too Much

When we came back, there was too much.
Too many choices cars things food
competing for attention, pulling us
to try and do, demanding that we eat,
requiring that we watch. Adjustments
had been made before, thin cotton mats
upon the floor, new tastes and smells,
no television, odd sensations when
a hundred voices in the marketplace
could speak at once, but never speak to us.
Squat toilets. Traveling by train. The
power that went off at whim,
so far away from everything familiar,
family and friends. Adjustments made,
and then the day we said goodbye to
all of that, flew home to orgies for the eyes
at K-Mart, too much stuff to take in
all at once; it made me woozy, and a bit
ashamed we had so much, so much,
and just because of where we lived,
while far away, for that exact same reason,
others did not even have enough.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015