Parking Lot Palm Reading//National Poetry Month

Parking Lot Palm Reading
This is your life line.
 
It is long, though you can’t seem to picture it. From a young age, you were convinced you would die at a young age. The thought of fragile bones and silver hair turns your stomach sour. You have always been a seeker of wisdom but never willing to give it your years. Always the grandson and never grandfather—old soul, chasing youth.
 
This is your love line.
 
It’s there, I promise. Starting strong at your mother’s cord. Thinner now but growing later. This branch here is your first lover. You still feel the pain of the breaking, the retreat back to trunk and roots and ever-firm ground. Can you recall the exact moment you convinced yourself that tears didn’t complement the shape of your cheekbones? If only you knew how many of our hands are scarred with broken branches that just couldn’t hold up the weight of our hearts.
 
This here is your head line.
 
You seem to have a million good ideas that you’ve convinced yourself aren’t worth the ten bucks you paid for last night’s 12-pack . To be quite honest, most of them aren’t. But there’s that one that lives near your nape on the right side that could be the one if you’d just risk it. Shit, that one is worth a lot more than the hot air of your father’s appraisal. You lie awake at night as its potential cuts deep into your flesh. Do not let it whittle away at you.
 
And this one is your fate line.
 
Why do you run from this life you have made for yourself? Why can’t you acknowledge the worth to be found in its humble imperfection. The ceiling of your studio apartment leaks when the rains get rough. You tell your mother about it on the phone. She asks why you don’t get it fixed or tell the landlord and you are ashamed to tell her that fixing it would bring you somewhere too close to too-good-to-be-true and what the fuck did you do to deserve that? So you put out a bucket and let the dripping be your lullaby. You’ve written lyrics. They go:
 
“Trading your good for the chance to be better
Is more of a gamble than I think it should be.
But there’s got to be something else other than this thing
Cuz that’s what they all say on morning TV…”

-L.V.Morton