/Postal Aid Package From Mum

Postal aid package from Mum
Glorified cleansed memories from passed time, victoriously escaped from three weeks ago
Forget about rent and food and phone and power and girls and cleaning and bus timetables and job seeking
Roll up, starving children! One night only! Starry-eyed sentiment! Affection!
I sit on my already stained couch and remember
No trade-off between lunch and bus fare and the prospect of going out this weekend
No no lift home at Desperate 12:30 AM and the people I was chatting to to get a lift home from tell me they live nowhere near.
Look: there’s some tea in there. Earl grey, but I’ll take what I’m given.
No aimless wandering around Fremantle because Centrelink stuffed up my payment and I spent my last dollar to get to their office and now I can’t get home.
A car that I can borrow.
Look at that little box of stuff: how’d she manage to pack a whole security blanket into one post-it pack?

Postal aid package from Mum
There’s even a letter.
She cared enough to put a letter in. An ironic smile full of self-pity sneaks onto my face.
The soft paper is folded in two halves like outstretched arms telling me to remember
cuddling up to Mum on the sofa as a kid
more than just verbal contact with the person who wants me to succeed most and thinks that I can.
She put in a photo. I touch it. More tactile than any human contact I’ve had since I moved over here.
I put the note next to my answering machine so I can notice it when I notice the lack of messages.
She rings sometimes but I need to get a call from someone in the Perth metropolitan area. More than once a week.
I can’t afford a frame so I rest the photo in between the ugly old phone and my broken ceramic lamp.

Postal aid package from Mum
“$50 is for a hair cut and coffee or even something more fun” 
Maybe I’ll fix the television aerial. Make it snow less inside.
I’ll use it this weekend to go out and strike up conversations with complete strangers/new friends
Out of lack of choice I’m an optimist so I choose to believe the latter 
It was unwise to not move into a share house with people but I’ll find a job soon. Remember
it’s a city: there’s lots of opportunities for able bodied, young, fit, clever people in the city
$50 is a lottery’s worth. How did she get it? 
There’s some canned food. Should do me a few more nights, three days until dole day.
Some chocolate too. I wish I could share it. Chocolate is no good unless you share it. A hug?
I reach over to grab it to eat it to make myself feel better but knock over and break the third cheap glass of a box of six.