. // THE INSOMNIAC'S CALENDAR. )

[sinensys]

the unsettled serpent
never truly lies
with its wily gaze
cast down or within ---
the suspicious ripples
continuously churn
in the serpent's
monocular vision.

on some days,
i envy them,
and on others,
i mourn
the lack of eyelids,
keeping me from
unwinding.

[sinensys]

guilt, grief, and shame ---
the three sisters
weaving the lives
of those unsettled
by the crooked depth
of rational reasoning.
the external world
can only do so much
to smoothen the
outwardly-reaching wrinkles.
the ripples extend
their stunted arms
in search of some thought
on which to cling.

[sinensys]

how inept i am at perceiving my own self --- i acknowledge my aphantasia and respect that i will never "see" myself as many other do, but do not even recognize myself in abstract form as i do to everyone else. why am i left without an icon in my catalogue of people? that catalogue isn't even that obscenely full to argue that i am out of storage space. i hold countless pieces of data, spun in a woven cloth of mental links and connections, but not memories outside of my inner world. those are lost to the unrelenting maw of the nothing. i get meaningless snapshot memories and some bits of experiences where i made a link to the database --- but even those are not personal. i struggle to chart down even basic facts about myself as an abstracted entity; it feels made up when i try to.

why have i lost myself to the long naught? and why do i have to fish pieces of myself out from that voidal lake and assemble them as one does with a puzzle?

[sinensys]

even with that benevolent deathgrip pried wide, the jaw still aches. the immaterial projection of a future envisioned pulled me by the teeth down a beckoning path of promise. and that path has brought me great bounties, even if i chipped teeth in my attempt to clamp down on that prophetic glimpse. and i will continue down this path, but not before releasing the foreign spirit i latched onto. no, i must forcibly unclench my maw and realign the crooked misconceptions i have held onto so dearly for momentum. already i have released several, but not all of them. some, wrought by my own self, still remain hidden to me, even still today.

even with that benevolent deathgrip pried wide, the jaw still aches --- but not as much as the self. it burns to have been let down by such simple means, the hammer suddenly refusing to obey the carpenter and instead choosing to aim for stray fingers. it should not hurt as much as it does. a few expectations crack and yet i am the one to collapse. it's so stupid. it feels so stupid to be so drastically disarmed by seemingly simple and easily resolved complications.

the complications were, truly, my own fault --- and also not. the blunder was initially mine, by virtue of missing deadlines. bit ot is arguable that the pain was necessary: otherwise, i might have been compelled to dream. historically, dreaming has been the direct cause of pain and the birth forge of misconceptions. it is entirely possible i have woken up a fractal of myself from a trance i was unaware of. the jaw still aches and i feel betrayed, even if it will ultimately benefit me.

[sinensys]

the banality of it all is not lost on me --- and yet still i am surprised at my own emotional reactions. the unseen mechanism recoils and threatens to unwind, rusting springs i so carefully polished in the last few years. i am simultaneously eager to let this play out while also bargaining with the tensed coils within my stomach. i am enthralled by the fear of disconnection yet ready to unplug from a select few i never imagined removing myself from --- the snake-wrought self is more sensitive than i had hoped. how often i had prided myself on my emotional stability, how i ached when understanding that i would never be the machine i aspired to be. and now, how i yearn for a lifetime i do not recognize as my own.

some lilted serpent has wormed its way between us, and i do not know if removing it will do any good. some days, i think it is entirely possible that it must resolve without intervention, or that it may even require resolution. other days, i fear you may be their origin. i have my faults --- many, in fact --- but this which you blame me for is not mine. in my deficits i have stumbled, but you tread intentionally, and recall past excursions with a spiteful eagerness. i wish i understood why i have always seemed a threat to you; it has only ever been you who put yourself into my shadow.

i cast this out in the case we never speak: i have not tried hard enough in some ways, and you have the right to be upset about that. but you still hold an additional, petty grudge which i will not settle for. for years i have welded my words to construct aluminum behemoths on which to stand --- i will not burn energy needlessly only for you to decide i hate you.

[sinensys]

the serpent within
my lower midsection
writhes more than usual,
as of late.
i have not heard
from that slanted muscle
in the last few months
so much as i have heard
from that crooked strength
in the last week.
i wish i knew how to
quell the beast,
and remind it that i
have no reason to
revert to old ways.

[sinensys]

i writhe beneath my own skin, a wyrm entombed in its own egg. the shell resists my persistent push and continues to bind me, a nauseating gauze for a wound improperly healed --- before, i might have preferred the safe calcium walls, but now they imprison me. how suddenly the once-benign structures of support can sour into malignant towers of self-repression --- or maybe i had just never tasted the acidic nature of the beams i had built. the energy expenditure of new supports frightens me, but the consequences of not doing so irks me more. one would think the two balance each other out, resulting in some small net displacement to propel me, but instead i am left paralyzed, currents pulled both down- and upstream. ultimately the opposing flows will churn me into a riptide, pulled from beneath my own self. my incessant coiling brings me ever nearer to the riptide, but it cannot be stopped. i fear it and impatiently await that moment's arrival.