That Instant

you look back at the countless system restarts, software downloads, years of physical and programming glitches, migrations from operating system to operating system, hardware failures, compatibility explosions, canyons of anxieties, quits, fear, fiscal shortfalls, bouts of rage, helpful hands, sympathetic ears, crying nights, hate filled days, and continents of time you've put in to trying to get the right graphics tablet with the functions you need that isn't near the end of its service life from the moment you plug it in and the tablet lights open their little firefly eyes, and the pen pressure is natural, and no batteries are required, and a twirl of its balance to bring the eraser to the page is as natural as the pointed tip too and you don't know what to feel because maybe something else terrible is waiting to happen and all will be lost overnight again including the money you could've used to buy so many other things, but damnit, it just works. 

it finally just works the way you've wanted it to, needed it to, and things are going to be a little different now, at least maybe ... the way they were before everything fell apart on you.

Dear (_____)

Dear pain,

You've taken sleep away from me.  The paranoia that breeds across my maps is all rooted to you.  I never know if the next morning is the morning when a swollen disk pokes a nerve or a frayed nerve get's caught in gravity's rotation and snips a cold bolt down one of my legs.  That paranoia, that anxiety, that never knowing if all of the days waking without you are a lead to some sort of crescendo two days long.  pERMANENT INURY BRED Memory. 

You don't scare me often.  I hope, when next you arrive, you bring some frost and ankle deep snow too.

huddled,

Hobbes