NuevaJess's blog: "NuevaJess Poems"

ROLLER COASTER HANGOVER

(2nd entry in Migraine Poetry Contest)

Dread coupled with strange anticipation

are your only companions as you are dragged into that line,

winding like an endless road to a known destination.

This is not your first ride

and most certainly will not be your last.

Initial discomforts as you wait your turn

are no match for the promised torture ahead;

past experience making you a pitfall master.

Self-warnings are useless,

And preparations for the inevitable

Have all the effectiveness of slamming a swinging door;

you are chartered on a course for certain despair.

The time inches near so quickly,

ushering you to the reserved front seat.

Your senses are incredibly magnified

as your pulse accelerates and your heart starts to pound.

Along with the ever increasing stomach cramps

coming with every clickity-clack up toward the crest.

Then whoosh!

You are free-falling

and your death grip does nothing

to stem the panic rising like the bile in your throat.

Your ears are splintered between utter silence and a deafening roar

catching stroboscopic glimpses of light;

some no brighter than the flashlight’s last breath.

Some brighter than the sun,

subsequent to the interspersed pitch-dark tunnels.

Time no longer has any real measurement

as you are twisted, thrown and pummeled

into perpetual physical onslaughts

resembling descents into hell.

Brief specters of relief come so sporadically

that alleviation is the ghost you cannot grasp

Instead resign yourself to the rending of your screams

colliding with the ignorant bliss of those around you.

Then finally, unbelievably, reality steps along with you into

the throng of humanity going at what must be light speed

compared to your cautiously ginger turtle steps

But, though the ride has ended

you have just begun to recover.

Empathizing with the punishment

of the rails than any other passenger.

And like the famed hangover

it will be quite some time

before you have reconciled,

rebooted, and reset.

So search out medicinal remedies

And shaman concoctions alike

To bring you to yourself again.

And though this at once seems to chronicle

the adventures of Rolling Thunder, the famed train,

after the effects of another drunken debacle;

this was just another migraine.