Therapy Poems: 6 - Light Brigade Poem by Gloria Kim

He added them up to make a point -
the hours of billable time we'd spent
he, making a living professing relationship -
six hundred hours in over six years
logged in a ledger.
' 600 long! 600 strong! ' he said,
flipping page after page
of notes on balance and returns on balance -
the charge of the light brigade.

I wanted to hold them in my hands,
this sheaf of all our transactions
a ledger's account perhaps an inch thick -
I wanted to feel the heft of it,
the weighty work of years.
600 sought,600 fought.
Me, skittering day after day -
a teetering self
in unfathomed imbalance
searching for equilibrium.