Nanoseconds

In between the ticking and the tocking, down deep in between the twitching of the thinnest sweeping clock hand, there is a hesitation when the time has come to leap between the seconds and everything stops and braces for the airborne moment.

There in those depths of time so small we barely see them, note their passing, nod as they go by, there in the brief stillness, I fly to pieces and pull myself together.

All day.  Every day.  As long as I am conscious.  Fly apart, come together.

My days are composed of waiting, and in the waiting I try to be patient but I burn.  My gut burns, my throat burns, my eyes burn.  Eat?  What is eat?  Drink?  What is drink?  When soaring explosively through the endless little deaths that occupy the betweens, one does not consume, one is consumed.

Every.  Minute.  Is.  Torture.

It doesn't end with sleep.  Sleep is simply a way for the mind to transform what is experienced during the day.  Sleep twists it, turns it, knots it up and hurls it into the psyche where it drops with leaden precision onto the most fertile ground, sends down shoots and roots and thorny runners, blooming restlessness and misery in its brambles.

There is no respite.  There is only the waiting for the leap, not of faith but simply of momentum forward into whatever waits in the continuing darkness.