Our brains don't always work for our best benefit. There are times when it seems as though nothing's working right or ever will work right. When insomnia or winter darkness or other helpless liminal period catches us, and all we can see is the worst in ourselves. I hope you don't grow too familiar with such times, but if you do, it helps to remember that they're temporary, and that you're not alone. Those traps catch everyone.
Four in the morning is a time I see more often than I'd like. Today, fortunately, I'm here through my usual sleep cycles, and I won't have any difficulty sleeping again after I post this. But it's also the time I associate with some of my darker thoughts, and it's comforting to know I'm not alone in that assessment. It's just an awful time of day.
Four in the Morning - Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Magus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire
The hour from night to day.
The hour from side to side.
The hour for those past thirty.
The hour swept clean to the crowing of cocks.
The hour when earth betrays us.
The hour when wind blows from extinguished stars.
The hour of and-what-if-nothing-remains-after-us.
The hollow hour.
Blank, empty.
The very pit of all other hours.
No one feels good at four in the morning.
If ants feel good at four in the morning
--three cheers for the ants. And let five o'clock come
if we're to go on living.
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