“All-Nighter”
I had a vivid memory of college essay all-nighters and the weird way I felt on the other side of them, felt this intense compulsion to capture it.
At the end of an all-nighter
I am deadmanwalking I am shambler
I am three bottles of coffee
and sugarmilk buzzing hornets
through my bloodstream and still
eyelids droop like broken shades
At the end of an all-nighter
words blur and syntax stops
making sense in every sentence
no matter how many times I
repeat and repeat and repeat
to proofread a misktae is always
left behind after the paper is graded
but all that matters now is that
it is finished ended entered submitted
At the end of an all-nighter
the sunrise looks wrong and
the shadows in the bedroom
are in the wrong place when
I’m deep in the covers cave
to hibernate until next class
At the end of an all-nighter
I am a god I can see all things
the mist of fluorescent light
and the parts of things the
pixels of the fabric of reality
static shifting so prettily
At the end of an all-nighter
I am an olddeadgod preparing
to be resurrected with the
embalming fluid of new coffee
