Insomniac Interlude

For all those that can't sleep

Hello, brain. I walked backwards into you at 3 am. I could see the animal in you, pale and snarling, galloping round your corners. My head is an animal. Two, actually. One pulls me left, one pulls me right. I sit and watch: let them. We never get anywhere. 

The orange light of the street lamps is misting against the window. Three degrees outside. Against the glass, the wind shivering, like it’s gotten cold with itself. It winds itself inward, tightly, trying to get away from itself�"and me, in a ball, trying to get away from myself. All of us, wound up together, just trying to get away. 

I could board a bus. No one would be on it, at 3 am, only me and my brain. Hello, again. But we could go by in the dark and I could see the people, could for an instant see the people and their sleeping shapes in their houses, the gap of an open mouth set with teeth and tongues, an armpit, a dog asleep in its crate, a child’s blue pajamas. We could go around, and I’d keep buying tickets, and finally someone else would take the reigns to drive me in dark circles. 

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

"like it's gotten cold with itself".....that is a great line...
we could do lots of things at 3am...not fighting crowds.
but our crowded brains seem to let go of the poems at that time...
it just is the way it is...our pens pull us out of our sheep counting, so that we can count syllables
and make poems.
j.