By Joshua Arnold

At night I stare at my television
and it stares right back at me,
a pixilated world of made-for-tv specials
reflected in its black, cycloptic eye.

Sometime after 3AM
my brain slides out through my mouth,
crouches in the intermittent shadows.
It pauses, then flits away,
lost in some jilted dream.

The room is encrusted with a silvery patina,
jittery and out of focus, like old WWII footage.
The walls seem to billow toward me,
alive with little gold particles of pixie dust.

I am caught, trapped, completely hypnotized,
stuck like chewing gum to my soft, green couch.
I hear my brain somewhere outside,
rummaging through the neighbors' garbage,
playing with the dog across the street.

Hours later
my tired brain finally returns,
crawls reluctantly into my skull
smelling of orange peels and potato chips.
I drift away into unconsciousness
just in time for my 6AM alarm.