Wake Up

Wake Up
by: Melanie Atkins
4/23/02

The rapid moans of a rotten goose
over and over, incessantly
Un-oiled steel, squeaking and squeaking
The metal hinges, bent and stretched
Screaming out in their ancient pain
And then the cackling of little bodies,
as they fall in spastic heaps onto the bed.
The bed frame’s song finds its end.

Lying with this new silence, alone with the night,
the furniture in the room breathes with me.
I stare out into the thick blackness of my still room
My stomach speaks to me in a thunderous tone.
Rumbling up into my throat
Like when you are so hungry,
you can feel the organs eating themselves.
Like my esophagus is disintegrating
And I drift off into a world of peaceful dreaming numbness.

Sirens, swirling, sinfully
Round and round in my head
Drones of harsh bellowing tones
over and over, endlessly
A constant, annoying, sharp, piercing, beeping
The throbbing alarm clock of the apartment next to mine continues sounding.
Do I dare knock on the wall and awaken the neighbors?
How can they not hear that?
I sit through the relentless pounding pulse
until my mind directs itself back to slumber.