Disquiet
Solar storms and stomachaches
feeding anxiety, encouraging mistakes.
Drawing anger out, shoveling worry in
every night’s sleep seems to wake
as soon as it begins. Drenched in sweat,
I am boiled awake hours away
from a lucid state. My eyes snap open,
I hurl my covers aside and fumble
for my phone to check the time.
The unnatural blaze of cellular light
that we now completely accept
as just a part of our life informs me
that it’s three in the morning –
Why am I awake?!
As usual, checking the phone was a mistake.
The luminescent rabbit hole that tempts
to trivial and text as we numbly type
and swipe to the next and the next.
I didn’t have to look. What difference did it make?
I still wish I was sleeping and I’m still awake.
But these days, who still lies still in sleeplessness’s dark embrace?
Who doesn’t reach for their personal distraction database?
How have we arrived in this place where our eyes thirst
for screens and our hands are constantly occupied
by gleaming machines? This desire for answers
sooner than instantly, before immediately and
quicker than now has left us less able
to comprehend somehow that our addiction
to knowing may not be as intelligent as it seems
as ideas give way to updates and devices replace dreams.
All Text Copyright 2020 – Adrienne S. Wallner/Jaeger