set

The night seems more sacred to me, somehow, than the day. The day is empty with calendar; anxious. The night stretches into the forever-future. It is a place for living and holds no finishing line.

In all this convict, still, I need the sun.

So: I have been shocked by my own eyes. Mirror showing them carved in frozen Arabics from my insistently wandered carpet-fueled dreams. These hieroglyphics seem no worthy trade-off for productivity (or at least, for restless peace).

I have seen my skin, in passive outcry, imitate sun-ripped fly-shit speckled ceilings. The carriers of my second selves have gripped tight in defiance, wrenching me into irregularity or nil. My arms and stomach have mimicked face with small heated secrets. My lowest sense has cried out at me too; cried, What are you doing? and wept at my stubborn decisions. Not that I have cared. I have not listened to any of these bodily protests.

So: I have been shocked by my own eyes. All the tea bags in the world cannot save them. The newest paper sends them red; the clattering baking trays send me wandering into the night. Having adopted medicine, my insides full of malice practice reverse psychology and wash rivers out of me; though giving me my own face back I am still sent into cathartic doubling at the ribs as soon as I am bleeding. No compensation at all. It seems the more I do well for myself, the more I am reprimanded when I deviate. All the daily poisons become more poisonous the longer I abstain.

Like the guilty conscience that has haunted me since childhood, the fourth and the ninth commandments ally. Leaving me wondering, Where do nocturnal animals get their vitamin D?