It was a restless night's sleep
Every cycle's repetition into REM
Left me debating the same question
Should I use the word
Philistine
or
Plebian
I didn't even have a use case
I don't know whether I was trying
To disparage someone else
Or myself
Unconscious agony over the right word
I woke up wet with sweat
Worried that my words
Are limp, loose and useless
I raced to my car shirtless
Tore out of the driveway
And headed east with the windows down
Oklahoma dust drifted in and clung to my damp skin
Mud drying into a dark brown cake
Which the wind popped off in pieces
Over the next thirty minutes
I drove into the dawn
Staring at light's birth until I went blind
Swerving off the highway
Burrowing my car in the nameless brush
That litters the landscape of Western Oklahoma