Like hungry kittens
these familiar demons
wake you at 4 a.m
demanding your attention.
Baring their pointy teeth
they whisper that your joy,
rediscovered and feverish,
might be pathological
or chemical
or both
or neither.
Your instinct is to fight
how dare they try to steal
this feeling, this is real
that which was closed has been opened
and you are —
perhaps
a bit
over the top
with great reluctance
you peer through the pre-dawn fog
and recognize that these visitors
have brought you a gift.
Some piece of truth they hunted down,
dragged bloody to your bedside.
Grateful exuberance swells once more:
The demons
are angels after all!
Maybe you really have
opened some mystic channel
to the heavens!
You feel a sudden clawing at your neck,
still stiff from sleep.
The sensation pulls you from this reverie
and toward another:
You imagine these mewling cherubs
sparring on your shoulders
filling your ears with conflicting stories.
They want you to believe in
their banal opposition.
Sunrise approaching, you begin to see past
the corny cartoon conflict.
Binary constructs are simple,
cuddly kittens are simple—
You are complex.
You are particle physics, philosophy, organic chemistry,
a vessel filled with molecules and mysteries
in which equilibrium remains a possibility.