My Aquarium

I missed my aquarium

The small fish bowl where I relax and make art

My home, where everything is in its place, so quick and easy

My desk, my piano, my teapot, and my stove for cooking rice

What a perfect existence

Why should I ever leave?

I have so much to say

And I can say it from down here

No interference, no disturbance 

No one projecting their energy at me

I must work to pay the bills and eventually the credit cards

And eventually after that the student loans

But while I am in my aquarium

Life is pure bliss

I only get dragged out every couple of weeks

For some useless social obligation

I say useless because it’s always trivial

I can’t discuss what I’m working on 

For fear of making other people self-conscious

Of their own lack of progress in their projects

Or even a lack of projects at all

Finally, it’s over and I’m back in my fishbowl

I can swim around aimlessly to the sound of classical piano

I can write and read and move my projects towards completion

And I am happy, because it feels important

Even if it is useless, as I suspect it is

I am happy.