Yesterday, we announced the first of five winners in our Brain Poetry Contest. Today we reveal our second winner.
Non Compos Mentis
By Ann Freggens Flynt
My narcoleptic brain must be
full of synchronicity
Nightmares never fail to sneak
up on my time in bed till
sleeping comes
and casts its spell
until I make another sojourn and awake
Memories lurk just out of reach
I memorize but it retreats
Amygdala strains
and tries to climb
a black monolith
fresh out of time
Its pain
Its drain
upon my soul is withering
like the glares
of those who
cannot see that brains
are mostly mystery
and those who suffer
its many foes
must muddle through
and makes it so
embarrassing
humiliating
not illuminating
not exacting
but stupefying
making me feel
stupid from
a wiring synapse or ruined
part that makes
Me who I am and not just part of me.
A resident of Jackson, Tennessee, Ann Freggens Flynt is currently pursuing a post-graduate special education certification with an emphasis on mild-to-moderate children at Union University. She is married, has two daughters, and was diagnosed, finally, with narcolepsy in 2003 after many years of wondering what was wrong.
