disquiet raze i_woke_up before i knew the shouts were mine. i caught the last of them leaving my throat, and then the quiet became the loudest thing i could hear. i don't know if there were any words, or if it was only fear divorced from language and reduced to a few howls and guttural grunts. still. i like it better this way, when i'm too close to sleep to believe i'm dying and only awake enough to know i'm not_dead_yet. 220501 ... raze this time there were words. two of them. "please_don't. please_don't. please_don't." i stopped begging when i was able to convince myself i wasn't having a stroke by moving my toes. 220502 ... raze i was talking to god. it wasn't anything she hadn't heard before. the clock was all wrong. it was after one when it should have been an hour or two earlier. the number i couldn't see, the one that wasn't there anymore, looked like an amputated limb, and in the absence of that red ligament of light i saw everything i stood to lose. 220522 ... raze i said "okay" six times in awkward groups of two. the clock told me it was 1:14. it only spoke once. then the minute was gone. i knew i wasn't a ghost when i grabbed the foam-covered stereo microphone that rests beside me in bed and it didn't rise on its own. i saw my hand make it move. i swear i did. just as long as i know i'm still here. just as long as i know. 220622 ... raze "stop," i said. "stop. stop. stop. stop what's happening." i was talking to my brain. my brain. my stupid fucking brain. it was black and bloated and bleary. it was killing me. i'd already died_in_a_dream. dying with my eyes wide open was worse. i shook myself until whatever was wrong with me was right again. it wasn't the end of anything. it was 1:06. 220711 ... raze all i remember is telling myself i was all_right. or trying to. 220717 ... raze "no," i moaned. "not yet." clawing at the mud of my misfiring mind. understanding there will come a day when it isn't a false alarm. when i won't be able to keep death from crawling into my bed. it was early for a change. 12:52. i turned onto my back and listened to the distant roar of thunder. 220724 ... raze an f_bomb in triplicate at 1:03. the panic passed. the night before, an invisible fist struck the right side of my head. somewhere near the temple. that doesn't happen often, but it's happened before. i can't explain the sound it makes. you'd have to be here. i'd have to sing it to you. 220730 ... raze at 1:32. "fuck. i'm okay, i'm okay, i'm okay. i'm okay, i'm okay, i'm okay." i wasn't. but i am. (i'm not. but i will be.) 220801 ... raze "ah, no. no no no." i was sure it was 11:14. then i remembered i don't go to bed that early anymore, and the first digit disappeared. "those ones are tricking me," i whispered to no one, before drifting into something vague enough to pass for comfort. 220803 ... raze 12:41. a few nights ago. "ah. stop stop." i had to fight to open my eyes. last_night it wasn't anything that bad. a surprised-sounding "ooh" at 1:32. i was having an easier time than i thought i would on a humid night without any of the help i usually get from my decrepit air_conditioner. maybe that threw me off. "fudge," i said. and that was the last of it. 220808 ... raze a grunt and a split second of terror at 1:08. fifteen minutes later i had to fight to focus my eyes and gnaw through the cobwebs that persuaded the piece of chewing gum inside my skull it was shutting down. i don't remember what i said. but i said something. 220817 ... raze back-to-back nights of having to calm myself at 12:41. i said "fine" three times. then i doubled it and picked up the pace. i enjoy symmetry as much as the next guy. but i could really do without the expected hat trick here. 220826 ... raze i got my wish, in a backwards way: it happened at 12:40 instead of 12:41. draped over the dread was the image of a red car. i couldn't tell if it was the real thing or a replica small enough for a rodent to ride in. 220827 ... raze more f-bombs at 12:56. nothing important blew up, as far as i could tell. 220829 ... raze apologizing to my own fist at 12:50. that's a new one. 220903 ... raze a noise at 1:10, without any thoughts attached to it. must have come from me. who else is going to be yelling at nothing in my bed after midnight? 220906 ... raze one minute before one o'clock, a single firecracker went off inside my skull. the aerial shell didn't have anything of substance to say after it left the mortar. it was just as well. i wasn't listening anyway. 220913 ... raze i don't know how i fell asleep on my back. i didn't think that was something i could do. i woke up at 1:40, alone with the accelerated atrophy of all i've ever been. i can't remember the last time i had to work so hard to will it away. 220925 ... raze an inarticulate yelp and a harsh turn to the right. always sometime after 1:00 now. every night. or morning. or whatever it wants to be called. 221005 ... raze i don't know what time it's been happening at lately. i don't look at the clock anymore. there isn't even anything driving it now. it's just there. the night wouldn't be complete if i wasn't sure i was on my way out at some point. 221119 ... raze i keep looking down to see if my body is beneath me as i rise. i haven't left it yet. so that's something. 221203 ... raze i'm fine. i'm fine. i'm fine. if something bad was happening, i'd feel it on the other side of my chest. 221228 ... raze my right arm was numb. so was the hand attached to it. i don't even sleep on that side anymore. haven't in years. i knew what it meant. and all i could say, all i could think, was, "not yet." 230104 ... raze this last time, i was sure it was really happening, and there was nothing i could do to arrest my own inevitable absolute erosion. either i was wrong, or i'm a very industrious ghost. 230128 ... raze it's been a while since i felt the need to beg for my life after tumbling out of a paper-thin sleep. i didn't miss it. 230320 ... raze before i could get my bearings, i heard myself saying this: "kick the phone, okay? stop stop stop." i know what i wanted to stop. the desire for phone abuse is a mystery to me. i guess anxiety and half-formed dreams do strange things to the still-conscious mind. 230330 ... raze i thought i would rise up out of me. spirit separated from the physical framework. then i would know it was over. but i moved the same way i always do. 230407 ... raze lately the blips have been coming at 12:30 on the dot. seeing 12:33 on the clock's face for a change was almost as troubling as the rest of it. 230417 ... raze (of course, 12:30 is really 1:30 now. but i refuse to set the clock beside my bed ahead. anything to trick myself into thinking i have more time than i really do.) 230417 ... raze same time again. same thing again. only worse. the only word that came out of my mouth was no. no. no. 230515 ... raze and again. and again. and again. i said "stop" a dozen times, as if the powerless urging might give back what the dullness of dismay had taken away. 230610 ... raze i toppled out of some semblance of slumber, choking on my own spit, and had to learn to breathe anew. 230611 ... raze i wonder how many times i need to tell myself i'm okay before my brain believes it. 230620 ... raze i was a windmill. i made it through three rotations before i collapsed. 230709 ... raze i thought my heart was exploding. or maybe that other thing. the thing that lives in the attic above my chest. i don't know what i said, but i said something. 230711 ... raze i had to turn a light on to prove to myself i wasn't falling straight down to hell. it worked. but only just. 230717 ... raze it happened again. 230808 ... raze the four quadrants of my chest were exploding at 2:30 in the morning. it took some time to remind myself my heart wasn't made that way. 230819 ... raze at 1:44 i said, "you'll ... uh ... pool fuck." my right breast was on fire. again, i had to reassure myself that my heart doesn't live there. 230826 ... raze something heavy fell on my head. i looked at the clock. it was 1:11. 230905 ... raze some nights i yell at myself in the second person. last night was one of those nights. 230906 ... raze it happens every night now. 230908 ... raze i searched for my pulse on every part of my body i thought might be carrying some echo of its steady hum, so i would know the engine that makes this beater run was still intact. i couldn't feel a thing. 231015 ... raze i tried to find a comforting word. all i could come up with was "there". i said it until it was just a sound with no intrinsic meaning. 231017 ... raze had to turn the light on again, though i didn't want to. i don't remember what a decent night's sleep feels like anymore. 231018 ... raze thirty-two minutes past midnight i calmed my racing heart and said, "ga ga gee gee bum bum poo poo." as cries for help go, i think that one could have used a little more time in the oven. 231111 ... raze the strangest_spasm i think i've ever felt, and then nothing. no shaky attempts at damage control. no murky mind movies. no broken sentences or strange turns of phrase. that's what i get for almost falling asleep on my back for once in my life. 231222 ... raze i really thought my luck had run out this time. it took a lot to make myself okay again. this isn't ever going to stop. is it? 231226 ... raze "not yet," i said to someone who wasn't listening. "please. i'm not ready to go yet." it was like i had to learn what my body was all over again. maybe dying and being born aren't so far apart. 240204 ... raze i heard my father's voice. he was talking to someone on the phone. i was sure of it. i couldn't quite make out what he was saying. my mind was a faulty focus ring. then a woman screamed, though there was no one here but me, and her unnamed fear became my own. 240227 ... raze i'm still feeding myself the same falsehood when half my body loses feeling. i'm fine. i'm fine. i'm fine. 240322 ... raze my panic wrote a poem at 1:30 in the morning: dark it was like a dark uh foo fuck 240331 ... raze i didn't miss this. 240520 ... raze "please, god, don't let me end here," i said at 1:11. i kept saying it until i felt i'd been granted a reprieve, however brief. 240704 ... raze i thought i might die choking on my own spit. a pretty inglorious exit. 241015 ... raze hello horror, my old friend. 241115 what's it to you? who go blather from