MORNINGE

every due morning 

I yearn to wake up not wanting to wake up 

on days when I’m not up all night waiting for sleepless nightmares to end 

and peace offers me sleep 

without knowing to want for it 

I hope for the first 3 seconds 

where I still feel my blanket warming my feet and hands and I don’t yet remember my body beneath it

those 3 seconds when all i hear is the creaky fan and i wait for it to send out the creak i know is coming to the rhythm only I’m familiar with 

I’m 4 years old and i wait for the silence in which i hear my mother again

I wait for her to prop me up near the bathroom sink and hand me a brush,

to grab my legs out from underneath when I climb back in to bed and 

those 3 seconds where my mortality hasn’t shook me awake 

I’m still whole and wondering why the moon is rarely ever complete 

when those 3 seconds get gripped out of my sickly hands 

I put my feet over the bed to meet an unsympathetically cold floor 

I walk myself over to bathroom sink and finally force open my eyes

and in a blink I see myself not quite there

just the 4 year old wearing my pink flower shoes and my green knit sweater 

my room lined with my stickers and my books thrown around

no scar on my body other than the scrape on my knee when i tripped over that green flower pot with stars on it bearing flowers i no longer remember  

and I wonder how I’m still the same 

when the world around wasn’t kind enough to be 

how I’m still here and trusting 

yet not quiet believing.