For a time
(postpartum)
I got myself a rare affliction
Hyper-vigilant yet
sleep starved
my brain
(addled)
devised an innovation
As I was nodding off
I’d hear a sudden
piercing
BANG
like a balloon popping
but right next to my ear drum
So I could never finish
falling
asleep
because the fucking
BANG
was saying
STAY ALERT
slacker
she could die while you dream
My sister
who knows things
told me my problem’s name
Exploding Head Syndrome
casually
technically
an auditory hallucination
Episodic
Cranial
Sensory
Shock
Making matters worse
my wife was traveling out of town
when one night
as I laid in bed
of course awake
next to the baby’s
SIDS-prevention sidecar
I heard her start to talk
at three months old!
a world record
except her voice
was strangely creaky
like a digitized
staccato
like a glitchy cell connection
repeating snippets from our day
just idle nothings overheard
like
baba’s coming
home tomorrow
hey oh look, a hawk
parroted back on auto-tune
like some possessed Alexa
the voice of a machine
metallic
automated
but with a mind
of its own
I stayed awake
the whole damn night
listening
so scared
I even prayed
— help help help
like a password
to nothing in particular
and then woke up
and realized
in the halfway pre-dawn light
my whole night had been
a nightmare
The baby had not
calcified in her cradle
into a rusty
chatty
tinman
she was still breathing
wetly
and beneath her lips
those two fine lines
were perfect
yes
but not precision-etched
by lasers
on assembly line
and her ear was
not a microphone
but yes
listening
always listening