CYCLES

I am awake at 2 and then again at 4:30
and I wake up at 5:45 and once more at 7:15
and that is why I look like the walking restless
and it could be someone else’s fault but really,
I just hate to sleep.
I am going to see someone later and I don’t know how
to explain to them why their words are hanging in the air
uncaught and why my words froth uselessly on the surface like
mouth-bubbles in a bathtub.
Random deliriums dither across my head
like those weird little eye-floaters
and I don’t have my walls up
and even if I did, I’ve read the Iliad and I’ve read the news
and I’ve pretended to read Paradise Lost
and I know that the popular consensus is that walls won’t work.
She’s there in front of me and I’m crying
and he’s there in front of me and I’m trying
and they're there in front of me and not buying it.
Different deliriums, same concept
and I reckon I need some déjà vu-doo.
I’m talking on the radio with my phone next to me
listening to the broadcast,
to my own voice with a 2 second delay.
I move my mouth to the mic, and I say
“And that’s a wrap”
and I listen to myself say it back
and it sounds like this time I mean it.