the sleeper

Anyway
at 3 in the morning

I crawl into her bed

quietly lay down

pretending she will not notice;

we are both judging me

for doing nothing useful

being nothing more

than awake, at night,

wasting hours meant for sleep

wasting life meant to be lived,

meant to be doing,

creating, maintaining,

anything but--nothing.

I don't even remember what I did.

I pull the sheets around me

judged, judging,

making empty promises

to myself, in my head,

trying to whitewash

my inexcusable, apathetic lust

for consciousness.

April 2022

The inevitable pause in the conversation with myself

 Blogs--are, like, not a thing anymore.  Remember blogs?  Ha, you were born in the 90s.

I suppose the active ones foster a community.  People react; they react to others' reactions; a community grows around the content.  People do this elsewhere, now; Reddit, Instagram, other ones I never visit.  Who am I kidding, I don't really visit those either.

So then!  The venerable blog!  Where you must actually visit intentionally rather than stumble across some machine-elevated content.  How obscure!  How bespoke!  How analog.  How 2003.

(I am writing in an odd headspace.  I am writing to myself.  I'm also inescapably aware that others might eavesdrop on what my neurons say to each other.  I'm trading the privacy of inner thought for the clarity of written thought.  Without the tension of a potential unintended audience, I wouldn't write the same way--but it also restricts my range of motion.  Curious to observe the dueling pressures in my head.)

The inescapable trouble with blogs is that they are all temporary: they will close, collapse, become a time capsule for nostalgia.  Even those blogs not permanently abandoned will occasionally slip into hiatus.  For example: I posted once in the last six months.  To be fair, some of that is due to nuance and private writing versus public writing.  Dark thoughts & cranky moods and so on.

But when I compare this to the unending waterfall of content that drowns our consciousness in every corner of every social media outlet, a bit of silence doesn't seem so bad.  It's like having a real pause in the conversation, instead of talking to 6 year old kids.  Or, in my case, three of them.

Today at one point during dinner, all three kids wanted to express their opinion on some topic and there erupted such a shouting match that all I could do was raise an eyebrow and down another bite of sushi.  I just--well yeah.  Raise yourselves if it's gonna be this noisy.  I'll be the one on the couch having a nap.

So, anyway--Giving the ol' blog a good dusting-off, getting a feather duster back there in the cracks, laughing at my younger, better, wiser self, indulging in the moment of introspection ... overall, I think I appreciate the occasional moment (or, uh, six months) of silence.

My other neuron agrees.  It's unanimous.

March 2022

The Inspection

On a Saturday morning

in April, after a night rain

budding trees sparkle in a gentle chill;

some surfaces are too bright to look at.

I sit in line for inspection:

they'll make sure the car is working.

I do the same for myself,

with coffee & depression.

The earth proclaims joy, celebration

of life returning!, Returning!, after the cold

but even hearing it, I do not hear it.

...

I see it, though. I scribble notes about it

calmly storing it away for a time

when I will join the celebration.

...

Like coffee, like cars, like inspections,

even like Spring herself, I know

this little shadow, too, must pass.

I will wait here patiently for it; mean time

the trees are pretty along the road.

I write with an empty hand.










April 2022

Dinner Date

Friendship carries a savage curl

alone at the feast-ruined table

I hear a vicious whisper: there is,

and ever shall be, nobody else.

Every other soul shall pass,

and only I remain--

then, in the moments after

and decades coming on

I realize: because I killed them

dead to me in my heart;

knowing I would lose them,

I cut them down and unleashed

loneliness upon my busy world.

April 2022

An exploration of insatiable wakefulness

 I don't know why I'm up

or what I'm waiting for,

who I think will save me.

I can sleep.  My bed is there

safe, and soft, and warm,

I'm not an insomniac

and I would just

piss the time away, anyway.

The books are on the shelf,

papers and pens undisturbed,

work unfinished cluttering

the untouched bench.

I don't know why I'm here

sitting at a window

as if I'll miss it--

as if I'll lose myself--

as if I'll let the universe down.

April 2022