imaginary
overenthusiastic
hippopotamus
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
I woke at midnight, the digital clock like an electric rooster
It doesn’t tick but I hear the seconds pass with emphasized thud, thud, thud,
The kingdom of white, sterile, eunuchs wound by clockwork
Into the storm upon the horizon, placed within a bone china teacup
Drifting but safe from all unsavoury lesser gods or lesser men
Nothing remotely stimulating or challenging beside the saline drip
Thinking aloud but when the words fall out, almost just a mutter, a gust of air
It’s a world of obsessive compulsives, a wave of disinfectant, when sat beside
Your bland medical notes and records, the Holy Grail for overenthusiastic doctors
One mistake and you’re like a smeared fly, wings concertinaed into liquid
Your bones broken and oozing as some demigod’s thumb smears you out of history
But it’s still a calming whitewash, bleaching away or just coating the self-neglect
The machines, just how I’d imagine a clone’s manmade womb, an overcoat of wires
Regardless of appearance, it’s a calm tsunami which hits me like a war hammer
It’s a calming wave of silence and stumbled words when sat beside your bedside
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