Waiter, there’s a wasp in my soup

I have white noise in my head.

It layers itself over everything my brain is trying to do

and the only way I can turn the screen

to a semi-smooth grey

is impair my senses

so my receptors can focus on one at a time.

I don’t want to be trying to read while having an audiobook playing

and a graphic novel flicking pages all at once.

I want what I see, hear, smell, taste and touch

to be a well-organised orchestra performing a waltz,

not one who’ve had their instruments switched with scrapyard junk

trying desperately to tune up what can’t be tuned.

 

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Escape

The ants crawl up the paper wrapper. Crisp. Slicing away at the butter within. Our eyes travel with them as they take their neat cubes back down the trail, meeting their brothers in traffic. Disconnect. A crash. Cymbals rained down on our heads. An ambulance was called. And police. The first and second violins screeched in erratically, but they didn’t stop. No long notes. Connect. The ants march on. We are the car behind. We are, we are, we are.