Each time I awake
with a swarm of questions
no one answers, or
can answer, or they
can’t be bothered by them;

I can’t even hold on to one
for more than a second.
Each one forms and vanishes
into the grey fog of me.
It renders them unknowable:

answer and question; certainty
and probe; raised eyebrow
and pounded fist on a table.
I let them go, get up from bed
and tend to the needs of living.

First to the bathroom; setting up
on the scale to worry or rejoice;
next, the bedroom to take my blood pressure
and my blood sugar and write it all down.
After that I wash the dishes,

if there are any. I make
a cup of coffee and then
I sit and read little bits that
vanish again into grey. Then
I sit some more —

all around are bits and pieces
of thought, divorced from anything
solid; I let them go as I let myself go
into a void, a vacuum. Each day
I go through the same routine;

endlessly tedious,
all vibrance drained off to a pool
of iridescence somewhere else, far
beyond me. I would ask different questions
if I knew or remembered them.

I would give up every bit of them
to go back and start over within this body.
I sit wondering about a way to get back
and nothing comes to me. Nothing
is what I’m made for. So I sit

alone and sit some more and
sit some more. Closed eyes,
terror at bay for now, for this moment;
I sit a while longer and think. And
occasionally, I write a poem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T