Puke: A Valid Response?

The validity of a physical retching sensation in response to life and all things it entails.

There are days, many more these days than acceptable, when I lay awake in bed overhearing the tiresome morning sounds of a geriatric household.

The deaf one is shouting at the lost one; he simply stares back, a stoic sculpture of incomprehension.

The authoritarian know-it-all is being himself, snubbing even the lizard under the dining table with derision.

It’s dark. Lovely cool darkness.

It’s early. Too early for me.

Snow Crash.

I am awake, my late-night long forgotten, sleep has slouched away not once complaining of insufficient attention. I want her back. Back in my blanket. As I try to shove my face down into my pillow within the darkness of my blanket, I want her to kiss my eyes back to peaceful oblivion. But she won’t hear of it. She is gone, long gone. I will myself to switch off instead.

Drifting.

In and out.

A throbbing thought loops around my mindspace like a news ticker—I wish I were dead—it’s on repeat. Along with its monotonous drone, unawares to my senses, there is a rising discomfort; now in my throat. I wake up to the realisation that on early mornings like this one, life makes me want to puke.

I don’t mean puke metaphorically or metaphysically. I don’t mean it in a shouting-from-atop-my-literary-high-horse sort of way. I mean the physical response of throwing up when met with highly disagreeable content.

That can’t be normal. Or maybe I just like slow, peaceful mornings. And I don’t remember the last one.

The Name Is Shadow

Seated in the mighty throne
This sun, singularly potent like the other
Giving and taking lives at His will
Fortune and Prosperity mere fair weather friends.

Brave were his choices;
He acknowledged loneliness
Accepted his part of
being understood a tyrant
And played it to perfection.

Alone the emperor performed
In that supreme stage of power
Lone in his decisions which lurked
Faceless and terrible, eluding spotlights.

When clouds of grey showed themselves
He rose-regal and elegant-off his throne
Among the silence that rained down like silk
With his only aide, the name was Shadow.