jittery
time to shut down
but not shut off
contemplating
every word
unspoken
compounded by
the ones that slipped
deformed from my
maggoty lips

a long drive tomorrow
cutting up
the jagged scar
to the end of
the chisholm trail
mesquite scrubs
and lonely
corcling hawks
and the solemn
razor edge of silence
that only comes
at one hundred
as the sun blisters
the sin from
the cracked soil
running on fumes
with the pedal
jammed hard
to the floor

but that’s tomorrow
tonight is
jittery
going the speed of
the moon’s disinterest
in an abhorrent
suffocating silence
my heart beating
somwhere north of
mach five
so the thunder
crashes long after
the palpatation
cease

staggered by
my own delusions
finding faces
in the shadows
on the ceiling
lost in grand epiphanies
turned to dust
when grasped at
too tightly

if you could harness
anxiety as power
each moment alone
would be enough
to light
the eastern seaboard

the goddamned pillow
is so swollen
with muttered i love yous
it twitches and snaps
barking callous little laughs
in derision at
a sleepless fool
too jittery
wound for sound
yet blanketed by
nothingness