April 1st.

Here's the first poem for National Poem Writing Month:


Sometimes


Sometimes I forget where I am
not just in place but also in time - 
find myself waiting for the J train on
Chamber Street and I can't remember
if it's 2004 and I'm coming back from school
or early 2000 when I didn't know the fastest
way to the Empire State Building. 
But it's 2011 and I return from the Upper East
a full day still ahead of me,
plans and hopes still percolating through
la cafetera of my mind.


The early early morning riders sport
a different kind of tired than
the late late night one's. The silence feels heavier
and less dangerous. Sometimes that helps
me tell the time. Sometimes I just have to
look down and see the mass of fat
hiding under my skin. This is not the body
I wore in 2000, or 2004. This 2011
body looks different and walks different
and finds it harder to squeeze between 
the two men and their perennially spread
legs taking over the subway seats. 
This body plans to Yoga, or something, 
when it gets home
but I already know that walking I'll 
convince myself to do it 
later
tomorrow
yes, yes
tomorrow I'll work out twice. 


Regardless of the time, I know the place:
stand right in front of the garbage can and then
I'll be right in front of the opening car doors and then
I'll be right in front of the first set of stairs
I'll need to climb down in order to get
home. 
Ride the track over and over
it'll take me to the same place. 
Maybe it's time to change
my way back home. 

© Y. Peña




I plan to post these once a day during the month of April. I've decided that accountability is the key here! Not just for writing, but for everything else in my life. Time to open the book and leave it open. I need to get healthier my peeps and so, this will be now more than just my traveling and the food I eat. I will keep y'all as my "live" journal and maybe this will shame me into making sure I stick to an exercise regimen.

The test will be when tomorrow/Sunday I have to measure and weight myself. I don't know yet if I'll share those numbers with you guys - I don't know if I'm ready! But if it'll help me, then it is what I'll have to do.

In the meantime, with every poem post (at least 5 days a week) there'll be the workout update. Here's today's:

Yoga at 7:45am for 35 minutes
Walked 2.4 miles in 35 minutes at 3:30pm