Sneezing

I’ve been sneezing a lot recently. I don’t mind sneezing, it feels nice and its allergy season, so it happens, the blooming of spring is worth the allergy. But like most things that feel nice (and not only the thing most often associated with the sneeze) it tends to involve more hassle than the short burst of feeling was worth, ducking into a nearby Starbucks bathroom with my hand over my nose, tingling nostrils as I walk back onto the avenue, my inevitable second and third and fourth aftershock sneezes. I tend to spend a good deal of time these days on janitorial duty in my mind, attempting to clean up the cluttered mess of rotted hope and faith, strewn and dusty wreckage of expectations, of superficial and extraneous relationships, of people I’ve hurt and ignored, people who’ve hurt and ignored me; all these things built during my big sneeze of 2006, and left to decay like a field of crumbling monuments from a closed worlds fair. I appreciate those of you who have offered a Kleenex, but I'm lucky enough to have a whole big box of 'em.