Insomnia

In the middle of the night

it is worse – everything is quiet

you feel rain on the roof

smell dry leaves rustle in trees

hear musty spores propagate

in the yard outside your door

You sit on the edge of your bed

trying to calm the swirling feels

that keep you awake at night

The memory of a friend

who lost control of their brain in college

and you could only drive them to the student hospital

Or the young nurse you used to talk to

when you were drafted

and she bled to death one day

on the surgery table in front of you

and there was nothing you could do to save her

And still you remember her laugh

Or the strange girl who cried alone

on a snowy bench late at night

who was in so much pain and

you had nothing you could offer

Or your employees who worked three jobs

to feed their families and

still smiled and called you sir every morning

Or friends who have cancer or bad kidneys

a kid in prison or a dying parent

Or last night, the young waitress in Augusta

who told you about her weight loss

her six year old son whose daddy doesn’t come around

her father with dementia and her mother

who had to retire to take care of him

Or the seventy thousand dollars of student debt that she can’t pay

because she is one semester from her masters

but she can’t finish because she works a day job

and has to waitress at night because

her child doesn’t qualify for free lunch

And you worry about this full employment economy

where billionaires don’t pay taxes

because in some alternate reality

it is good for the economy

that they generate jobs

that only pay enough to put gas in old cars

buy a burger on the dollar menu at the drive through

on the way from full-time jobs to part-time jobs

so children can eat lunch at school

And your wife has some student who is losing it

because he won’t graduate this fall

And the college won’t do anything about him

And her friends tell her he sounds like

an active shooter in the making

And you have to tell her

worry Is not a good enough reason

to not give the final to her class this morning

And no, you are not going to her class

to give the final this morning

And you wish you could stop feeling

all this pain swirling around you

And you wish you could stop

this neuropathy in your soul

so you can go back to sleep

12-11-19