Not Ready To Sleep

She asks me to hand her the
hairbrush she keeps on the
small table at the front of
our room, and I get it for her
while she looks at herself in
our tall but narrow mirror.

I remember when I was too
afraid to even meet her eyes
with mine, and everything
about the future seemed like
it knew what it was doing.
Now I only hear doubt from
all sides, and every dimension,
while stacks and stacks of previous
plans all burn in the fire of reality.

When I drive by places from my
past this all becomes extremely
obvious. Everything within them
is the same except for the people.
The mechanisms which gave me
a path are really just social artillery
that is reloaded with each subsequent
generation.

Too many real choices doesn’t help
keep the grass from spreading into
the streets and up the sides of buildings.
A world like that is incapable of replacing
organs in our bodies with those donated by
others who have been destroyed.

Maybe our best chance is to stick together?
When it works well we get things like airplanes
and Pixar, but even those have been gathered
up like sand between its tentacles and molded into
boxes that can be run by anyone that will do as their
told.

All of this is temporary even though it seems like
certain things never go away. Similar to the way it feels
to fall asleep when you’re not ready to.
When all you’re focusing on is holding open
your eyelids in spite of gravity and the chemicals
in your brain. It’s not insane to feel like things
aren’t working. Just don’t be unaware of all this
darkness lurking.