Alarm Clock

I used to require liberal use of the snooze button upon waking, but there is no longer a need - for as soon as I reach consciousness thoughts enter my brain like a barrage of bullets to my chest, piercing my breastplate. Each bullet squirming like a worm through my rib-cage and swimming upstream through my arteries, stopping the flow of blood to my head. And yet they leave me not quite dead. The merciless squirming wormy thoughts reach my heart in a split second, before I have time to think, before I have time to open my eyes and blink. They are there, in my heart and in my head. Not quite alive and not yet dead. The process of reaching consciousness is so jarring, like the slap of fragile flesh breaking the surface tension of a swimming pool on a cold December night. No, there is no place in this space for thoughts to gently enter my mind and slip away. My mind is like a steel trap and you are a wild beast. I try to hold on to you for as long as I can in this moment just before waking, in this space where I can see you and the closeness is so real that I could almost press my lips to yours. But before I have a chance to, reality seeps in like a bullet to my chest, like worms devouring my not quite dead corpse. As the first notes of my alarm clock chime, I remember that you are not mine. There is no need for a second bell. I want no round two in this boxing match from hell, where it is me versus my thoughts versus reality, and I always lose the fight. I succumb to the thoughts. I let them overtake me and fill me, wake me and chill me. They break me and kill me. I am immediately propelled forward and out of bed for fear of looking back at the love that is dead. Or not quite dead rather, more like a zombie. An un-dead flesh eating monster that gnaws at my brain relentlessly, and I wonder if I will ever be free. Yet you will always be a part of me, at the heart of me. And maybe I don’t really want to be free, because the pain in my chest - as searing and fresh as it is - serves to remind me that I am not quite dead. I am still here, more real than these thoughts. A survivor of one zombie apocalypse of a romance. The alarm clock reminds me that I have a reason to be awake, even though sometimes I don’t want to live without you.