Stories used to come so easy for me
I would open my mouth to tell someone about dinner
Yesterday or the day before
And suddenly I’m telling this story
About waiters and insignificant offenses
By significant others
My sisters search for a lost book
Often became a story about life and its unsuspected
Ups and downs
Entire books could be written from one sexual encounter
If left to my own devices
I won’t exactly say I stretched the truth
The truth is that life often stretches
Into the best ideas for the silliest stories
And I could never let one pass
But lately they don’t come so easy
Maybe my life has become too boring
Or maybe my imagination is shrinking
In direct proportion to the increase
In the candles on my birthday cake
Which is another story entirely
And we’ll go into that at another time