In the morning
when your thoughts seem guided
by some frenzied Army general
bashing on a typewriter,
every letter dropping
another grenade
into the war zone,
your rationality weaving
through the steel raindrops
of every vowel and consonant
that makes up your fear
until finally
the general takes a moment,
tired
to let his fingers rest
so yours can take over
with a gentle “tap, tap, tap”
sending snowflakes down
to settle over the scars
left by the explosions.
My mind is a mess in the morning – fragments of dreams rising in wisps of smoke, trying to smudge out the anxieties painted across my mental walls in that moment between sleep and wakefulness – between “Am I?” and “I am.”
And so, another earthquake – and another after that….then another, and another…
a world atop a rocking horse whose wood is full of cracks.
I’m not sure if the world quakes more or if we do.
Every time you bite your nails, you’re trying to clip away a little of your stress – to literally take the edge off – or you pick at a scab or a pimple or an ingrown hair, hoping that the part of yourself you pull away is the part that made you look for something to pick at in the first place.
You can’t after all pick and pick at the thoughts in your head in a tangible sort of a way – you can only try to dull the noise, hoping that something- picking, alcohol, nicotine – can silence the world in your head like a blanket of snow can silence a city.
Just Little Green Buttons 