3 A.M. Migraine. Poem by Kali Rose Stewart

The dead of night, and still
laptop speakers emit dizzying syncopated grindings
birthday flowers wilt ironically
as technicolor balloons' deflation add
a permeation of stench to white petals withering

The dead of night, still,
Sterile chartreuse fluorescence flickers
My fingers observe obscured aches beneath the shallow shale of my skull
While an offending bedside table observes me ceaselessly sadistically
Indifferent to this scalpee's plight.

Still, it is the dead of the night
in spite of 400HZ electrical hums that never desert me and
higher frequencies screaming as they die in my ears forever
Now, silence begins to smash my eardrums inward
Save for my lover's murmurs languishing meditatively
Rising, falling, hesitantly
squeezing my murky spine, dull distraction from
dust collecting in corners of my throat.

Now, dead of day, always still
Birds peeping pentatonic pining for fleeting measures
Given cynical sunlight hours or miserable moonlight
I'm not sure which I'd rather choose to live as
there's not much of a difference...
When 2: 38 pm morphs into 8: 54 pm morphs into 12: 30 am morphs into
3: 13 am morphs into waning wakelessness weighting my watery eyelids
like cinder blocks around a mobster's feet as he begins Piscean dreaming

Still, the dead of the night is, still.