6am

The alarm screams
Each beep
Cutting a painful
Incision into my brain

I reach for my phone
Through the cold and dark
To shut off 
That piercing 
Soul-destroying
Sound

Get up!
My mind screams
Get up 
Now!

My body becomes
A tight elastic band
Eyes previously fairy lights
Are now lamps

Heart racing
Mind revving
It’s 6am and 
I am already 
Behind

The cogs in my head
Are spinning 
At too many miles per hour

Clanging, whirring, banging
Against my skull
My head hurts
As I wake to the reality
Of this life

I sit at my desk
And open up 
Pandora’s box
A million tabs
A billion unread messages
A trillion emails that
Need a response
Now

My chest is pounding 
Shoulders rising

A sip of dark
Black coffee
The heat warms my chest
The steam and aroma
Fill my nostrils 

A moment of calm
My heart slows briefly
As the caffeine 
Seeps into my blood

And then
Everything rises at once
Like an orchestral crescendo

Heart pumping harder
Lungs expanding like 
A hot air balloon filling with heat
The veins in my forehead
Pulsate like a
Beat boxer
Rocking a baby in a crib
So it can do 
What it has to do today
Without even feeling it

Back and forth
Back and forth
The momentum in my body
Takes over
My mind takes a backseat

All the reasons not to be here
Not to be doing this
Not to be scraping 
From the depth of my soul
To eek out another day
Of backbreaking work

All the reasons not to think of
The million shattered neurons
That will eventually collapse
And bring me faster to death 
Than I should have arrived

All of the reasons not to
Keep doing this bullshit
Are gone
And I am at one
With the absurdity
And destruction
Of it all.