Things that have woken me in the night
American bullfrogs
Boars stumbling in the garden
Thunderclaps
Rain on the roof
High winds howling shaking trees rattling windows
also sheet lightning but that’s usually when I’m already in a light sleep
cats cats fighting cats, fucking cats, mewling cats jumping on the bed
Also dogs watching the perimeter and barking especially Bodhi and white sonya queen of the north in her old age imagining threats
also sirens but only when I lived in LA
Babies babies crying for food babies crying for comfort babies mewling also babies similarly woken by lightning and thunder
Worries fear resentment grief
dreams that I’m wishing to escape from also the children crawling into our bed after dreams they wish to escape from
Ideas inventions list poems
Nausea
An arm or leg that fell asleep
Breakthrough shoulder pain
A Charley horse
Milk letting down
A need to pee
Night sweats
alarms alarms set for early morning flights alarm set for Cross time zone conference calls alarms set to finish something for a morning meeting that I hadn’t completed the night before alarms set for early morning triathlon training alarms set so that I could get some peace and quiet before the morning swirl
Arrivals arrivals of weary guests car engines turning off doors opening and closing taxis in the drive
or other homecomings or after parties and also yes Departures hushed door clicks and suitcase shuffles
I have also been woken by:
Midnight Popcorn
A barely audible television show
Someone laughing
Someone arguing
Someone moving furniture
Muffled cum cries unmuffled also
Distant heartbreak
Less frequently
Glass shattering
Earthquakes small and large
The smell of smoke
The smoke alarm
The tsunami warning
Police at the door
Labor pains
The death call
Often desire
my own desire
His desire
Him draping his leg, switching to big spoon, pressing in to me, breathing on my nape squeezing me to him saying I love you in liminal delirium
Him coughing, or muttering something in his sleep, or bodyheat or blanket stealing
This I see has become autobiography
Laying here in the small dark
With the cats and frogs and rain and my feral hunger