Morpheus

Vicodin Vicodin Vicodin
Perkoset.
Strange words to be stuck in my head. Got nothing to do with them. They're just there. Words that get put on auto when you're tired, and you start to think, and you're trying to get your head moving so you can get things done. You try to tell your brain shit--to get some sort of running dialogue. Like providing cues to an actor on stage who's about ready to go into a full tilt improv skit before suddenly turning into a mute.
The light dims in your silent head. You try to come up with a scene to inspire the actor of your mind to move.
....random word gets thrown out. Stuck on repeat. The actor latches onto it. Repeats it. As if it can't figure out what it is, what it means, or what it has to do with the situation, but is endlessly fascinated.
Like back in your Jr High English class, when you first learned the word "Discombobulated", and found yourself giggling over it for hours on end at a sleepover as you and your best friend attempted to stay up until dawn, despite Morpheus tugging tantalizingly at your consciousness.

Vicodin.
Vicodin.
Morpheus.
...silence.

My brain shifts. Moves. Falls still.
Perfect meditation, if it were purposeful. The sounds of the closed circuit televisions hum around me in the office. The only interruption to the steady hum the "tap tap--pause--taptaptap...tap tap," of my fingers on the keyboard as I type. I feel as if I should be a writer in some new age movie. Rather than a type writer and a cigarette, I hold a laptop and an organic orange juice. Give me a trendy cup of nonfat soy mocha, double shot of espresso, and I'd rank right up there with...well...are there any trend-fag famous writers yet?




Screw that.
I'd rather be a Stein or a Longfellow. Or a Hemmingway. Drunk, miserable, long lived, and brilliant.
Tortured.
But brilliant.



My sleep has suffered.
I don't know why I do it to myself.
Three hours a night. On purpose.
I could have gotten more.
But I didn't.
I see the time slipping by.
But I don't heed it.
Hour
by hour
by painstaking hour.
My eyes start to blur.
My lids start to tremble.
Head...falling forward.......
....back starting to slump.........
.......jerking up.
Shaking myself awake.
Looking at the clock. I should go to bed. Still finding something else to occupy my time. Something else to make the day less hollow.
Three hours of sleep is enough, right?




Hands pressed to a stomach that's flattening.
Eyes glued to this screen like a magnet, mind blank, leaving me all too aware of my body.
The way my collar feels against my throat
or how the skin feels, there, tingling, making me want to grab at it. Wrap my hand around it and protect it, because I can feel the air brushing the skin, heightening the phobia of being touched over my jugular.
Eyelashes tangling with each stuttered blink, off rhythm, feeling like spiderwebs at the corners. Work pants rubbing hipbones that feel sharper, irritating against the thick fabric and sharp edged belt. Shoes heavy (two pounds, according to the scale at work), dangling, twitching, laces loose. Neck...neck uncomfortable. Always uncomfortable.
The sure sign of sleep deprivation for me.
That feeling like I need to press my fists to my neck and cover it. Hide it. Pinch at it, protect it, cover it.
Sure as a single word being stuck in repeat in my brain.
Vicodin...
...protect the throat...
....vicodin...
...protect the throat....
....vicodin....
......protect the throat......

Eyes heavy, the lull of the computers in the back...




I need to sleep, but as soon as my bed is in sight, sleep will be forgotten in lieu of more interesting pursuits, such as trying to decide how to pass the time....

...so it goes.