Tonight's Tumult.

My hands begin to shake and that’s how I know it’s starting.

Everyone else has gone off to be alone.

It rushes through me in an instant, like a freight train,

Manipulating my veins to serve as tracks.

What the hand tremblers forget is that this is a circulatory system.

There is no point A

And point B;

That a freight train traveling from A to B

At a rate of 10 miles a minute

May never meet the train that rushes

2 for 10

That my heart pumps to the click clack click clack

Of tonight’s frightful breathing,

That I don’t know who’s waking up tomorrow

But I hope that you do,

And I hope that if you do,

You won't forget.

You will know I was alone

While you slept soundly

After sweet teas

And salty records,

The wind outside is violent

But nothing pounds on my nerves so hard

As the sheets of rain that shroud my brain

When the clock reaches for

Single digit hours again.

They call this the middle of the night,

But that logic cannot hold,

It is the double-digit, ambiguous

Glass half-empty-full.

It is the end of the night.

When each hour stretches exponentially

After the decline of our central star,

I will take any excuse to end

The keen and crippling debilitation

In any attempted search for solace.

I beg daylight to reach for me

For his arms are always open,

I will because I must

Maintain my midnight

As the start of my morning.

I understand it was named for the middle of the night.

But I feel so much stronger

Than reasonable understanding,

I prefer my delusion.

This is the start of the morning I will wake to

In the brief seconds that follow

The epiphany of the trains

That shred my veins,

And how many more single digit dark hours will they waste away

In pursuit?

My pulse systematically distributes tension,

Returning always to my heightened nerves,

How long does it take two fright trains leaving from point A

To race along through each raw vein, capillary, and ventricle,

To finally realize that there is no point B?

How long will it take

To exhaust such determined conductors,

To convince my sentient body to cooperate

With my rational mind?

How long must it take

For tonight’s anxieties to realize

That their rushing and racing is futile?

Their efforts, existentially nugatory.

Only until the storm that encircles my head

Warns them,

It’s too rough to race on.

I remind my nerves,

You’ve had the time

I won’t allow you in scheduled waking hours,

Please, leave me unimpeded.

My eyes are dry

shadows dank and deep,

I will beg for rest

Until it swallows me

To sleep.

2012