Dancer in the Dark

Last night I watched Dancer in the Dark at Jory's apartment, with Tiffa and Erin. While I sat there watching it, I didn't really cry-- just a little, near the end, because the security guard really got to me for some reason, the way she stomped her feet and held onto Selma while she cried. I just don't do that very often, cry on cue, let tears fall in public where people can see them and wonder... is she feeling just what I'm feeling right now, this very second?
Today I was cleaning the bathroom, spreading Comet across porcelain surfaces and scrubbing grimy dirt from the doorframe and the top of the light fixture... it always gets stuck there because of all the hairspray and the swamp cooler. I was kneeling beside the bathtub, swishing my rag around inside it, wondering why I bother to clean it every week when nobody bathes in it. Absently humming any tune that came into my head to keep myself occupied, amused at the way it would catch and thrum in my cold-ravaged throat.

raindrops on roses
and whiskers on kittens
bright copper kettles
and warm woolen mittens
brown paper packages
tied up with strings....

When my brother found me crying into the bathmat, I knew that I could never explain it to him. He would never understand.