transport of shadows

I am trying to sleep,
but that place in my stomach that turns,
                                 strange,
                                 sticky,
                                    always,
                                       

will not let me. 
my door is open­-
just a crack
but enough
that I can hear
the television
blaring and
that place turns.

it sounds like violence, always,
                                        and I remember
nightmares.

later, I will need
the doors closed
and the lights off
but now, I do not
know this. 
now, I only know that, though the shadows
                               always splay
                               and trick my stomach
                                         into turning
they are better than the black.

I have memories that are only shadows
and not yet memories yet that haunt;
unhatched, fragile traumas
that I carry carefully 

I stay awake as long as I am able, refuse to close my eyes, the shadows behind my lids more terrifying than what is seen on walls.  I pray my pat prayer, reciting like a poem from memory.

Self comforting. Dear God,...please…
help…please….don’t let….
I list the worst. 
the string of worries: fires, thieves, bad dreams
            and then pleas to spare all loved ones
from the pits of hell.  

I am not yet practiced in gratitude. 
I am not yet practiced in keeping company. 
I do not yet know your secrets or even mine,
but I know anticipation

I know that if I fall asleep early enough, the soft sound of the bath water running blankets me. 
I won’t hear the tv blaring
but the bath is drawn earlier and earlier in season of depression and approaching twelve,
I stay up later.

I am too old
for your lap,
so I am confined
to the loneliness
  of my bedroom
I am too old
to cry,
so I am confined
to the loneliness
  of adolescence
I am too young,
so I am confined
I am surrounded
by the loneliness
I am in the middle,
waiting
in the loneliness

I fantasize illness.

You are reclining in your chair in the hollow confines of your room,
your tv room. 

I pull the covers up and anticipate the dreams and the dreams anticipate the dreams. I am cold inside this age of aging

I miss my mother
      singing me to sleep.
I miss her
           hand on my back
with the suspicion that her touch is as of yet, false suspicion of a memory.  waiting,
always, for this touch  mourning the touch

sometimes, I feign the nightmare early
to come the distance
to come to your chapel
to your seclusion
to talk.
to hear your deep voice that
once I feared.
sound is well defined but image still intangible and waiting to form
            in the recollections
I can’t yet know this.  
I know my hands are full.  
I feel the weight of age

if I’m lucky
you’ll light
the stove to scramble eggs