sweating the small stuff

have you ever been so busy
worrying about day to day junk,
that you don't even notice that
someone close to you is hurting?

you sit in your house
thinking about how your kids
don't eat enough vegetables,
and should drink more water,
and how are they doing in school,
which is elementary school for goodness sake,
when suddenly you realize that it's all
small potatoes.

ridiculously small potatoes,
that you couldn't even make into
a decent soup.

and you realize that this other person,
this person close to you,
may have needed a shoulder,
may have tried to talk to you,
and you probably said something dumb
about how much laundry you had to do.
or how stressed out you are about
nothing in particular.

and there probably isn't anything you could have done,
but man, you could have listened better.
read the neon signs.
been more aware.
been more, well, just there.

how did you fix it?
no reason.