Awake is the day, and I exist
Therein aloof life’s fleeting hours
Whose currents float me out of bed,
My brick mouth blank, riding mundane streams.

So what is the day if we dream through the night?
Its leather vines wrap but go unfelt on skin.
Some toss, others snore, all coated in black,
While I scour the walls for a lick of dread.

The moon lit bright only pierces the night.
Watching and waiting, it discerns me numb.
My father now dines up with the stars yet,
No interest I hold to know how you are.

I used to stare straight through the roof and
Burned night skies with my ocean eyes,
Streaming fast, and drowning sheets, while
My soul sneaked smiles for I lived the dream.

Isn’t it a joy to surrender to pain
And let its knife teeth sink right under our souls?
Never floating, neither fleeting, only
Inundated so as to know that this is life you’re living.

Now mauve clouds stretch over edifice trees
While I gulp down gray from a styrofoam cup.
How dully it sings, winter wind through dead leaves.
Imagine me dead…Oh, a wooden casket!

Saturated me, the ache had fled.
Six years passed, still searching for dread;
To feel a weight that sinks like lead,
Instead blasé til the next death bed.