Amanda Weir-Gertzog

insomnia meandering mind

3 am again again
(and) ever again
the tick-hick of my
keyboard percusses
gently to the thrumping
of my insomnia-clacking
jaw like every long (decade)
and cog-clicking
wheel before

seven(teen) versions of
this poem exist in my
backstroking frothy
spiked sugarplum mind
with write-a-verse tilt
tossing verbal jumbles
with noun dressing
semantically on
repeat rescuing me from
adjec(objec)tively
mad-dramatic REM-
less nights

should i bow down to the
prescription machine for
the few sleeping hours
(sometimes) a
semblance of health slips
through my ruby rash
inflamed digits resisting
the urge for illicit distract-
ing delicious uplifting
substances and almost
every carbohydrate not
nailed down in sight

praise to the sugary milk
chocolate goddesses
flying silver glistening
and on high for gathering
me, myself, and i (she, her,
and we) together in this
morning meditation, a legal
drug(ish) mediation on the
simplicities of solitude
and vexings of vicissitudes
meshing my meandering
mind with synapse mapping
dopamine pop rockets of
purple flares and flicks of
rarefied freedom before i
sink into the cheerio black
hole of rumination —

i take a deep breath (or
two) wash my eyes
in past lives with
cerulean oceans
of me and you
in a soothing
ecological
embrace

i kiss my
own hand —
earthbound
wide-eyed
and awake