Today I am exhausted,
dysregulated nerves.

Somehow even simple rest
feels like more than I deserve.

I wake up overstimulated,
somehow already sad.

It's like half of all the other
"wake in painful" days I've had.

Not really a disaster,
the feeling's bound to fade.

I'll wake tomorrow,
and the next,

just another day.

It’s hard to make sense of the noise.
There are just some places
That makes it hard to exist, to breathe.
And the world feels too close.

I’m haunted by the thought
Of forgetting everyone’s smile.
Some moments just feel blurred,
Especially when it all feels too much.

But between the chaos,
There are glimpses of something softer.

A smile,
a second that could slip away,
But not quite.

A moment
Trying to forge itself in my head,
In a hope to be remembered.

Ears ringing, like after a concert.
Each sound, each voice, each tapping, each clicking...
Just—too much noise.
Too much...
Too ******* much!

Eyes burning like flames.
Too bright, too white, too dark, too...
Many colors blending together, creating a mess.
Too much...
Too ******* much!

Skin irritated, like a hundred bee stings.
Clothes rubbing, skin itching, scratching—makes it worse.
Each sensation, like a shock through the whole body.
Too much...
TOO ******* MUCH!

Blistering honeydew pouring down
Hitting the ground like priceless china
Why do people even hold onto china
Crickets screeching and the mattress underneath me
And suddenly I am so aware of mortality
I want to bleed out the soft cushions
Let the insides rot away to the bone
All the lights and hands and people
Angels swirling around asking for directions
Even the mist is unbearable at times
O, god, I can't even hate you
I'll have to settle for abjuration
Home is where the cold hollow trees are
Home is where I wish I was

I have no right to feel this way.
Everything is too loud, too much.
I want to cover my ears, but it gives little relief.
I tear at my hair, and the pain gives an anchor.
My patches are hidden, small secrets.
Mors ultima linea rerum,
a constant threat,
the sword above my head.
Not death itself,
but the inability to find peace.
Sleep is similar, but it is not death.
It is similar, Tarkovsky observes,
but it is not permanent.
Sleep is universal,
but so is waking.
The fool, shepherd, wise, and king
rise with the sun.
Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat.
Mors ultima linea rerum.

Dizzy, the rush
of thoughts incapacitate
synapses firing, neurons
    throttled, a crescendo
    of dendrites branching

Experience roots
inwardly, tearing the humus
           of pregnant dreams, scratching to see
                               the blood beneath the scab.

     The greater the itch, the greater
        the disturbance of sleep,
            bound by a tangle of vines,
            deafened by the cobbling-together
                of thrushspeak, the cry of clouds
                contorting into unthinkable
                     and suggestive shapes        

   Bleary-eyed, the lost wages
   of sleep gambled away
   on a ticking clock.