What ticks discordantly...

What ticks discordantly through my head while I sit on a clammy leather seat in the ocean of tall, finespun fake-red hair and ugly shoes that makes up Rosh Hashanah services

Clergy is a disgusting word
(and they use it so frequently- like it’s a unifier, like it’s some plea for agreement).

These high ceilings are equal parts eerie and exquisite
(and they make you meager).

I love the tendons in your hand that shift and stretch when you drum your fingers
or when someone plays the piano
(fingers are drumming a lot tonight, sinews of your hand are pulsing faintly a lot tonight).

Dried-lipstick crinkled corners of lips make me squirm
(they’re on my own lips, they’re on the ones of hunched-over, wispy-haired little old women who I’ll be one day).

I like tracing streams of consciousness
or figuring out the reason I’ve been singing a certain song all day
(2008 Britney Spears caused by a joke about the binary system).

I hate the word cascade
(but not for the same reason as clergy).

It’s only here, only bound in these stained glass walls, where I remember
the word awesome is actually the word awe-some,
as in inspiring awe
(it happens every time).

I love the letter q
(and its request to be heard, to be seen).

My part in this is trifling and trivial
(there are people keeping me here and
I am not one of them).