Pulse in His Pillow

Pulse in His Pillow

(“If a person thinks he is religious, but does not keep his tongue from speaking bad things, he is fooling himself. His religion is worth nothing.” James 1:26)

The fog was pounding, morning throbbing,
no words were spoken, just the early grunt awoken
by the need to attend with friends with pain refraining
the hope he held for the morning.

Yet midnight ran slowly until 12:15,
12:15 made the rounds to 1 am. All he heard
was the pulse in his pillow; each heartbeat heard
scurried ahead to the next, insistent on keeping the
body unsynchronized. Sleep has its own patterns and
the body sometimes misses the closing elevator door
to transport it to basement quiet and calm.

The mind was full, always full, racing from old flames
to new hopes; from praying to claiming a post-hypnotic suggestion
of peace. Using his brain he slept in a meadow, alone and safe,
familiar and cocooned; but the thoughts followed him from
comfortable couch to warm earth bed. And the pillow pulsed
again, refrain, again, coda, refrain, verse and chorus, again.

The chemicals were responsible, it was clear. Four doses a day
kept the goblins away, though their darts were felt in the best hours.
Systems have faults, built by humans, and the system failed to
resume his prescription timely. Untidy cuts down the middle of
tabs, brought him to one-third his daily dose, for three days and
a half. He had no weapons to bring down the demons of chemistry.

He missed meetings; a beloved hour with two nearly newlyweds.
an evening at play with music and Word, and a morning to break
Friday’s fast with men, comrades he had learned to trust.

And feared, having missed doing his job, peace would be
jumbled and jigsawed, words defensive and short-story-first-person.

And, with every weapon unloaded, he goaded the best words (or
none), until chemistry found its proper homeostasis