Liz Napieralski lives in the high desert mountains of Santa Fe NM. her poetry has most recently appeared in Third Wednesday, ditch, The Mas Tequila Review. Visit her blog.

Before I Was 30
By Liz Napieralski

I was going to publish a book
a brilliant, undeniably influential book
and then move overseas, finally become
fluent in Spanish and join the circus

perhaps to be a stunt rider
who read poems on horseback
in Spanish.

I was going to travel the world,
win the Extreme Cowboy Race,
learn some wicked ninja moves
and be diva on ivory keys,

I wanted to hypnotize everyone with
the sultry grace of bellydance
by firelight, showing off impossibly
long hair and exotic tattoos–

I have done none of these things.

Always a dreamer and now 32,
still reaching open-hearted
for a million new I’m-going-tos

at 29 I fell in love with
a single dad with a daughter,
fell into a domestic routine

where there’s hardly time
for writing or riding horses;
Spanish still fumbles trippingly from
the tongue and I can play

a mere three songs on piano
and I still screw them up

it’s hard, though, to feel regretful
when last night she fell
asleep on my chest
mumbled something
that sounded like “mom,”

and I had a moment, remembered
the days aren’t numbered just yet

and dance class starts tomorrow.