As I’ve struggled with falling asleep at night, I’ve returned to one of the games I used to soothe my anxiety during the peak of the pandemic: Animal Crossing. I bought a digital version of the game at some point last year, to ease the disruption I felt during the cold winter evenings when I was forced to leave my cocoon of blankets in order to change the cartridge in my Switch, and then wound up not playing it much more than I had previously. It turns out that even removing the one incredibly minor inconvenience preventing me from playing the game wasn’t enough to get me back into it in a dependable manner. This time, though, I swore it would be different. This time, I needed the calm music and friendly NPCs to soothe my spiraling mind.
Continue readingNight
The Night And I
I needed a bit more time to work on this week’s Infrared Isolation chapter, so here’s a reflective and somewhat meditative piece I’ve been working on for a bit instead. Chapter 6 will go up next week on the 8th and you can enjoy this bit of non-fiction about my life and what I’ve done to fill my nights when my insomnia kept me from sleeping.
Continue readingRecorded and Reposted: Everlasting
The sullen thrum of a distant engine
Rings in the cascading hills
As they rise and fall on the horizon,
Fading into the white haze
Of a humid Wisconsin evening.
A fire burns to cinders in the foreground
And the stars silently conquer the curtain of night,
Pinpricks of sunlight poking through the shroud
That wraps a dying day,
As we cling to the hope
That we are as eternal as this moment.
Recorded and Reposted: Sleeping with the Window Open
I used to sleep with the window open.
The washed out yellow street light
Standing sentinel at the corner next to my driveway
Throws wild shadows on my shelves and walls
That are occasionally stretched into thin waving lines
As the bright pale blue light of the patrolling cop’s
Fluorescent headlights roll past my yard.
The silent murmur of the woods holds sway
Broken by a passing car on a distant highway,
The echoing sirens of a police car needed somewhere quick,
Or the mournful blare of a train lost somewhere in the hills.
Warm Summer Nights, Grill Smoke, and Soft Conversation
The weather has finally finished the incredible fluctuation it began when the 7-month winter finally ended in early May. The massive heatwave, followed by weather that would have been “seasonable” back in late March or early April has finally settled into the 50s to 70s range that is common to May and early June. I miss the protracted cool period of spring rain storms that used to gradually give way to heat and summer thunderstorms, but I’ll take stable weather if I can get it at this point. Anything is better than this fluctuation that is murdering my joints and aggravating my sinuses. The poor things are already suffering because an entire spring’s worth of tree pollenation has been crammed into the past few weeks to the point that I can’t even go on a walk without feeling out of breath and developing a headache from the sinus pressure.
Continue readingMy Place Beneath An Infinite Sky
I am a child. The world has become huge, but pieces of it still feel small and like they can belong to me in a way they can’t belong to anyone else. I am past all the illusions of youth, but I’ve learned to lie well enough to fool even myself when the need arises. Tonight, a night when everyone else is busy settling in to the cabin my parents have rented, I am left to my own devices. My parents are so busy with my youngest sibling that they don’t even notice me leave. Their usual hail of admonitions is absent as they talk about the next two weeks and the schedule we are all to stick to. Tonight, though, I have no schedule, excellent fire-making skills, an enormous pile of wood beside the bonfire pit, and a cloudless evening sky that I’ve been told will soon be filled with more stars than I have ever seen in my life.
Continue readingSleeping with the Window Open
I used to sleep with the window open.
The washed out yellow street light
Standing sentinel at the corner next to my driveway
Throws wild shadows on my shelves and walls
That are occasionally stretched into thin waving lines
As the bright pale blue light of the patrolling cop’s
Fluorescent headlights roll past my yard.
The silent murmur of the woods holds sway
Broken by a passing car on a distant highway,
The echoing sirens of a police car needed somewhere quick,
Or the mournful blare of a train lost somewhere in the hills.
Watching, Waiting
Last night, I watched the moon.
I stood outside and waited for it,
From the first glimmers of starlight
That beat down on me,
Cold and isolating
As they spoke of size
And depth and space
That were beyond me
And my little life,
To the bright corona of light
That told me the moon was sitting
Behind trees that stood tall,
Proud of the ground
They held against
The rising tide of Humans
Clearing ground for fields
And planning subdivisions.
As the moon rose above the trees,
Full and gargantuation in context,
It threw its light into the sky,
Reminding the stars
That they would fade
Before its brilliance
And that it shone
Only for we Humans
And our little lives,
And smiled down on the world,
Bright on a cloudless night
To lift the veil of nightfall,
Showing the sparse trees
For the sentinels they are
Of a world long lost
That humans chose to respect
In all that remained
Of its wilderness.
I sat and watched as hours passed
And the moon brushed away
The canopy of pinprick stars
That tried to drown it.
There is nothing up there
And nothing down here
That can stop its journey.
All we can do
Is sit and watch and wait
And let it push or pull us
Like a nightly tide
Of human emotion.
When it finally came time
For the sun to share the sky,
The moon slowly gave way,
Fading to a pale disc
With no light to share
Until it almost vanished
In the pale blue
Of the morning.
I took comfort in knowing
The moon was still there
As I went through my day,
Sleepless muddled thoughts
Fueled by extra coffee
And the knowledge
Of the moon waiting,
Hanging on the horizon
Despite the heavy glare
Of the unfeeling sun.
Maybe I too can stay my course
Despite the inexorable feeling
That I sometimes fade away
To the point of being overlooked
By anyone who doesn’t care to search,
That little feeling
Of having gone away
Without having left
And being somehow less
Than I know myself to be.
I claim no special kinship,
At least not one beyond
What anyone could claim,
But I do know it holds a place
As high in my esteem
As it holds in the sky
And I am tidally locked
To its influence.
At End of Day
When the day is done and the fire’s stoked,
When the night is fresh and the world is cloaked
In star-soft mantle of darkening blue
I still have one last job to do.
I compile the words I have found,
Feeling out their shape and sound
As I sort them into categories
In preparation for all the stories
I haven’t had the chance to tell,
Until the fire’s down to a sullen swell
And the first glimmers of morning sun
Tell me that my work is done.
Dreams
My dreams are a dark unknown abyss
That always deny me restful bliss
As I try to sleep and only miss
Each and every attempt to end this
String of nights forever gone amiss.
My dreams often lose their frightful sheen
When they are so few and far between
I forget the horror I have seen
And eagerly await the next scene
Of whatever story I am keen
To introduce into my routine.
My dreams aren’t sweet, ephemeral things
Tied to secret hopes by hidden strings
But scaly monsters replete with wings
Moving in silence so loud it rings.
My dreams have no blood and guts and gore,
They have something even worse in store
As I toil through my nightly chore
Of knocking on the dark, horrid doors
Of my mind to find what it fears more
Than any monster to wash ashore.