Surrender

I’ve been interrogating 3 am.

Asking the night who I am? 

And what I ought to do? 

And why, well why any of it? 

Why life? 

And why suffering? 

And why death? 

And why not? 

An impetuous, insatiable toddler 

Begging for sleep. 

Thrashing in a tantrum

Against my own consciousness

Or lack of unconsciousness.

A babe with half-closed eyes enraged

By my own being. 

I never grew out of my ignorance

Or my contempt for it. 

And now my rage simmers into bitterness, 

The taste of it sharp to the tongue. 

It’s cynicism. 

It’s the terror of knowing nothing.

So I decide I know everything

Equates to nothing. 

It’s fear.

I know fear. 

Awake at 3 am or 4 am or 5 am,

Thinking about death

And nothingness and control 

Or lack thereof. 

And begging

For goddamn sleep,

For surrender, 

For something to take over.

Maybe the pre-packaged God of my youth,

Or the flimsy spirituality of my adolescence,

Or the prescription medications. 

I hope I’ll see a ghost,

If only to prove there’s more than me 

And the combative thoughts in my mind. 

And then, sleep. 

I succumb without knowing.

I surrender without meaning.

And in the morning it happens, 

As I wash the dishes

Listening to a new Maggie Rogers' song, 

Dancing in my kitchen.

Limbs askew, feet trying to defy gravity, dog staring. 

I think it’s nothing,

But maybe it’s something.