Definition of a Bad Start (Notes in the Moleskine, 3 a.m.)

Wake up and step into a pool of molasses and quicksand right off the side of the bed. Big jolt of this unbearable lava jars the senses and I try to breathe, but nothing works. Choked from the smoke. Skin is peeling off. The stench of charred epidermis and stress triggers a migraine. Visual symptoms. White lightning discharges down into the eyes. Nausea. Language center doesn’t work. Struggle to get words out. Must be what it feels like after a stroke. And then being passed off, as if pushed through a gauntlet, being touched by moist hands, sweaty hands, dry hands, diseased hands, being spit upon, vomited upon, moving down the fleshy tunnel fast now. It never ends, there’s no light. It’s a myth. I am the son of Aeolus. No, of Helen. No, of Poseidon. No, of Hippotes. Start this bloody day already.