awake
w/ first line from ‘singularity (after Stephen Hawking)’ by Marie Howe
do you sometimes want to wake up to
lightning so stunning
it writes words across the sky
thunder so throbbing
it serenades a love song
rain so walled
it makes rooms for you
to hide in
do you sometimes want to wake up to
the shuddering waves of
an oceanic orgasm
pleasure so rich you make
new stars when you exhale
the folds of your garden
swelling into mountains
so you sometimes want to wake up to
a hungry haiku
wrapping its quiet ode
around your heart
with tree roots and
amphibian choruses
letters curly-cueing
into your veins
do you sometimes want to wake up to
one broken-fingered
scrape-soaked hand
hanging you off a cliff
your skin drenched in
worry and fear
your leg fractured
your thigh punctured
then you
just let go
do you sometimes want to wake up to
joy – volcano-ing out of your
eye sockets
blink
then go back to sleep
do you sometimes want to wake up to
everything you believe is good is good
everyone you love is alive and
loves you back
people are all pages
in a book we write together
we read together
everyone reads
everyone writes
there is no more sleep
because dreaming happens
in the dazzlings nows
constantly
like clouds
translucidus cirrostratus
as long as we still are
we are always awakening
these days…a slow goodbye to coffee…drips sweats from gardening…refreshing swims…zombies…grieving…filling pages in journals…inability to focus…bewilderment…hope…prayers
I am reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Gifted to me for my birthday…Thank you, Charis! It is breathtaking. I read until the wee hours of the morning…my eyeballs drying up.
Morning coffee session writes are still going strong. Join us HERE.
Be kind. Be compassionate. Be well.
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 