5-Minute Poetry at Almost Midnight

Sometimes I feel heavy.
A heavy heavy that is different from the heavy I feel
when I eat too many chips with salsa
before my two tacos
and refried beans
and guacamole
and a few bites of my kid's quesadilla,
making the walk to the car from the Mexican restaurant
a series of remorseful, thick steps.
The heavy I mean is the kind of heavy
that wraps around my heart,
sinking it down into my gut
like a rusty anchor.
It pulls down my shoulders, my chin,
the corners of my mouth,
and leaks the inside out in tiny, teary streams.
Sometimes I feel heavy
because I am cruel.
Sometimes I feel heavy
because life is cruel.
And sometimes I feel heavy
because someone else is feeling heavy too.
Heaviness is contagious that way.