It is on afternoons like this one

That I feel like a jigsaw puzzle,

Tampered with by a toddler at the very moment,

When it appeared that my pieces were forming a cohesive picture.

My pieces, now strewn across the floor,

Flung to the farthest recesses of the room by her chubby arms — Just out of my eye’s reach, and my mind’s perception.

On afternoons like this one,

I try to make sense of what is left on my nightstand.

I push aside the razors and pills that promise happiness but lie,

Preparing with my remaining pieces to play seek and hide, and beginning, to Fill in the spaces between them.