Sleepless

Sleepless nights bathed in the light of the droning TV,

familiar music and memories,

I travel back to 2015

in my mind.

-

The memories fragmented

settings turn to smells, puzzle pieces and prospects

traumas accumulate, a game of Telephone,

misremembered and intensified

in all the wrong directions.

-

It seemed so simple then

until you remember the details:

the nights spent in sharp pains.

-

The pictures mask those moments

the line between reality and hopelessness collapsing

a desolate dystopia just outside the window.

-

I haven’t opened a book in weeks.

-

My mother’s vitriol sprayed to the walls each time I ‘speak’.

-

The circles we fall into,

those we swore to avoid

crept up on us with pleasantries

and proceeded to destroy.

-

A thin plaster over the problem

that which cracks foundations

and capsizes war machines.

-

I spent twelve hours in the shower,

got out, and still felt unclean.

-

A sitting tension I can’t shake,

we lost most of ourselves in that earthquake

and little has changed, as nowadays

in the mildest of heat, my body

gives in,

goes limp,

and slowly bakes.