3 AM Warning

It started before dawn,

a frantic, piercing chirp,

a sound that finds the softest part of your skull.

Not fire, not yet,

just a battery, low and worn,

a small, insistent scorn.

It blinks its red eye,

a single, pulsing light,

cutting through the thickest night.

You try to ignore it,

pull the blanket tight,

but the whine digs in,

a constant, grating fight.

Three AM.

Nothing to do but dread

the noise inside your head.