the middle of the night

Sometimes these things

these things weigh heavily on my mind.

Pushed up from my heart where usually they lay in dormant slumber.

These hard things. Sad things. Difficult things that are here or else are coming.

They are there. Things that must be done. Or staved off.

Things that are bigger than me. Overwhelming and tricky things.

A list of things a mile long that must be done, figured, taken care of.

These things that get the best of me more often than I care to admit.

Mostly I sleep well. Sleep is healing and keeps the gears running,

but sometimes this list just ticks on through. Not letting me rest in it’s demanding urgency.

The clock is ticking, the list is ticking, time just keeps on ticking by

and still I just keep swimming upstream it feels like. Awash in a sea of mixed metaphors

and similarly confused similes like a salmon throwing itself up the rapids, desperate only to hatch these ideas into fruition.

I’m tired and need to go back to bed, but I needed to get some of this junk out of my weary head.

It will keep until the morning.

My tender heart will not break tonight even though it is stretched tight. My brain paces around itself looking for the lightswitch.

Turn out the lights, it’s bedtime.