while the food gets cold on the counter

I have always been beside myself
watching this body I slip into
when I don't feel like
drifting

she is me
I am them
when spirits drift too close
I leave here
relive another life
in another time

the only sure thing
is that every trip ends in death
the only way to come back to my 
body
is to remember
some benign but poignant
memory only I lived

me in my twenties
as a waitress at a diner
too sad to wait on people
I spend my meager tips of change
on the juke box
playing old sad songs
while the food gets cold on the counter

​tumbling through space and time
I fall into this body
that I reject each day

this is how the dead live
when they can't move on
each day is an eternity
where they travel from memory
to memory
only to come home
to a body buried
to a body burned
to a family that
has forgotten them

they wander
until they find a place 
to rest
right now
they are resting here

with me
knowing that I am
reckless
restless
escape is just 
a thought away

they feed me memories
when I don't want to remember
my own
and I
​give them a home

​