Reset Forty-Nine, Day Three Hundred Three

[rejectomorph]

Yesterday (Saturday) I thought I'd be asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, but there was a hitch. The hamster in my brain took over and spent about three hours running in his little wheel before I finally passed out, probably from exhaustion. Nothing has been right since. I think I finally broke myself. Concentration is nearly impossible, and I think I've been up and down, in and out of bed, for most of the last fifteen hours, and nothing is done. I didn't even fix dinner last night. I don't even want to think about doing it today. I don't even want to think about today. Or tomorrow. Or whenever. So much stuff has flown through my brain and I can't compose any of it into anything resembling sense. I'll just put this here and see if I can sleep again.



Sunday Verse

Emptying Town

by Nick Flynn


I want to erase your footprints
from my walls. Each pillow
is thick with your reasons. Omens

fill the sidewalk below my window: a woman
in a party hat, clinging
to a tin-foil balloon. Shadows

creep slowly across the tar, someone yells, "Stop!"
and I close my eyes. I can't watch

as this town slowly empties, leaving me
strung between bon-voyages, like so many clothes
on a line, the white handkerchief

stuck in my throat. You know the way Jesus

rips open his shirt
to show us his heart, all flaming and thorny,
the way he points to it. I'm afraid

the way I'll miss you will be this obvious.

I have a friend who everyone warns me
is dangerous, he hides
bloody images of Jesus
around my house, for me to find

when I come home; Jesus
behind the cupboard door, Jesus tucked

into the mirror. He wants to save me
but we disagree from what. My version of hell
is someone ripping open his shirt

and saying, Look what I did for you...