Priority Level 1

Post-itized to your daily routine

I come before filing that tax return

or putting away a book.

I am doing your laundry before playing video games,

finishing homework before that other thing,

H the name of which is shadowed by my humble frame.

I am of the utmost significance, RIGHT NOW.

Post-itized to your wants, I am the need.

Highlighted and underlined and pasted onto your to-do lists

and calendars, places to go and people to see.

I frame your go-abouts because I come first to you.

Until the novelty of my loyalty is crumpled

In the wastebasket of disposable people.

Until you need to study, or run an errand,

or maybe stop caring.

I can’t tell if my presence is or was meaningful,

but I hope like my loyalty your appreciation for me

never unsticks, like my adhesive qualities,

keeping me on the surface of the pile.