Photon Death — a poem

Photo by pawel szvmanski on Unsplash

The fortune teller used to be
a zig-zagging electron
pinballing her way through many respectable hoops
highly alive, and never asleep,
wishing she could be curled up in bed
at normal hours of the night.
always scarf-wrapped, carrying a thermos of green tea,
trying to stay healthy and caffeinated and warm
endless headaches from sleep deprivation
were swallowed away and kept at bay with chalky low-dose painkillers,
only to be revived with high ambitions

she was a pent-up ball of energy back then,
a white dwarf star on the verge of collapse or explosion
she possessed Ideas
they possessed her more
they walked about her head, humming to her brain.
they roomed in her heart, curled up there in bed
they dug a hole in the bottom of her soul