Sleepless

Time is bloody in my head,

claiming fiber after fiber

of the page I’m writing on.

Brain battery ran low last night,

charge not meant to last

more than 36 hours awake.

So I woke up this morning

and couldn’t tell if I woke up,

couldn’t remember being unconscious,

couldn’t imagine being conscious.

My stomach snarls again;

Home has been empty for too long.

Priorities shift, crack, rumble

so loud my skull reverberates.

My eyes are waves against

the shore of my attention;

Low tide warning blinks in peripheral.

And the space behind my lungs

is yelling now. I feel my brain

clicking from slide to slide,

Semi-automatic safety snap.

I am afraid of the freedom inside my eyelids;

I am afraid of thinking about more

than what is directly in front of me.

…and now I’ve succumbed

and overcome the fear,

but this kind of thought

feels less productive.

A warmth tingles in my ribs,

and I know it’s time to lie down,

but my bed is trying to swallow me,

and I can’t let this day disappear.