The original version of this piece was written in early December.  I have stripped it down. It is interesting to revisit as the light slowly returns.

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I live in a state

Of brilliant madness

I teeter on the apex

Of a jagged mountain

Balanced atop a skateboard

Precarious

The least shift of weight

A momentary loss of focus

Resulting in the long careen

Into the ravine

Full of jagged rocks

Fallen branches

Murkish water

It is exhausting

And exhilarating

 

My thoughts

Tumbling

Exploding

Like atoms in a cyclotron

Thick blue dots

Moving in the clear viscous liquid

Of a tall glass cylinder

Reaching the ceiling

Reaching the sky

At times they synchronize

In military formation

At others they collide

In complete anarchy

 

I dwell

In the still quiet hours

Of predawn

My personal twilight

Human and canine

Companions asleep

House creaky with age and forced hot air

I ignore the mouse

Scurrying in the kitchen

Non-aggression treaty intact

As long as we do not come face-to-face

 

I have been waking

In one of two states

The words pulling at me

Rousing me

Demanding that it is time

To sit in front of the

Impersonal screen

Serve as a conduit

As they take shape

Write themselves

 

The other state

Suspended animation

Frozen in time

Trapped in the silence

Unable to muster

A single word

A single truth

Terrifying me

 

I admit to myself

If to no one else

My deep ambivalence toward

The jagged little pharma

Sitting on the kitchen table

That may save my life

But steal this brilliant madness

 

© 2017 Christine Elizabeth Ray – All rights Reserved