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