writhing with frustration
aching with desire
wrestling with indecision
still as a mountain top looming over the City

madness like electricity
like gouts and bursts of searing fire burning through my nerves
like flashes of blinding lightning tearing through the evening sky
the soul shudders, the mind recoils
sends pinprick shivers up and down my spine
as I stare eyes open
seeing nothing
but the darkness in this squalid, fetid tenement

hurls me out of my dreams
jolts me out of my sleep
and maybe it was just the earth groaning
sliding, thrusting a millimeter east
a millimeter skyward
or the rumbling of a well-laden Mack truck
careening down the claustrophobic street
negotiating the sudden gusts of wind
leaving behind a sonic wake
like the roaring of a transient waterfall
or a supersonic burst of air
a shockwave as the fighter jets scramble
and the stealth bombers deploy

In this stillness, this sloth, languishing in indecision
the soul quivers, thrashes
locked within this dilapidated body gone to pot
worn down and encumbered
by 100 kilos of slow, torpid flesh
and all decisions look wrong

It’s not a question of wrong and right.
It’s a question of wrong and very wrong.

All paths lead out into the darkness
into the fog of war
into the foam of quantum uncertainty

it’s not so much the sense of barrelling down the freeway
at 200 km/h, tied down in a straitjacket, sitting bitch in the backseat
otherwise unrestrained, with no one at the wheel

it’s that wriggling/shivery feeling at the back of your head
wondering how you ended up here in the first place
knowing that the past is irrevocable
but the future is going to be damned fucking short
and even triumph become tragedy

It’s just the gnawing hunger in your belly
and the frantic urgency of basic bodily functions

You’re trying to be still, but the nerves jangle
the muscles spasm
each breath drawing down the sharpness of knives
aerosolized glass shards lacerating your airways
there is no relief until the end
and is that all you’re waiting for?