The midnight mind is a different creature than the daytime one,
it has its own jurisdiction, its own work that must be done
by 4 AM, it visits every unattended debt,
every word I have left unspoken and the ones I should forget.
It starts in the specific: a conversation from last spring,
the specific phrase I used that I can still hear echoing
in the apartment where we argued, in the way it landed wrong,
the midnight mind replays it with precision and with song.
The midnight mind knows everything I have left undone,
the midnight mind will not stop until the damage is reviewed as won,
it keeps the archive current, never loses a receipt,
the midnight mind will be here when the daylight makes retreat.
It moves from the specific to the general in time,
from the single conversation to the overarching rhyme
of what the conversation proves about my character,
the midnight mind assembles me as prosecuting barrister.
I tried the countermeasures: the list beside the bed,
the scheduled processing, the writing down what is in my head,
the breathing exercises and the body scan at night,
the midnight mind accepts them and continues with its right.
The strange thing is the mind is sharpest in this dark recital,
it connects the dots that daylight keeps in careful non-committal,
and sometimes the conclusions it arrives at before dawn
are accurate, the midnight mind is terrible and drawn
from something true beneath the daylight management and cover,
and I rise with what it told me and I try to recover
the clarity in the broad light of the ordinary day,
and the midnight mind is quiet, but it has never gone away.