The wakeful hours stack like thin scales, brittle and opaque and one by one
forming small piles, three rocks high, which mark the path my mind has walked
alone and in the dark: senseless circles of retraced steps.
The piles grow taller as the hours tick tock tick tock
until stalactites hang from the inside walls of my head, puncturing my brain with
sharp, unforgiving points. All my sense starts to pool
in weird places like in quivering drops at the tips of my earlobes
or as a dry crust under my fingernails,
places where it does me
no good at all.
Insomnia is a private hell until the day dawns and I spread it like rancid butter all over
a freshly baked day, rendering it inedible, even for the dog.
