I woke up this morning

I was no longer part of you

I thought we were stitched

together in tangles of silk

spider webbed forever

in intricate patterns

beginning but

never ending.

Gossamer threads -

a creation of my mind

the ghost of your body

was never there

to begin with -

a fleeting fantasy

blowing in the wind

Invisible silhouette

I woke up this morning

and was no longer confused.

I awoke and suddenly knew

everything I've put you through.

The long nights without a call

worrying you all,

that is until you saw.

I was high not dead

sleeping soundlessly in my bed.

not a care in the world,

that is until I heard 

the weeps and cry from those I love.

I'm 6 months sober and know

I can stay this way till its time to go.

I woke up this morning and I was no longer ashamed. No more was I beaten and battered by my past. The agony from my sudden heartbreak had consumed me for too long- the painful past few months were relentless. My one true love had turned his back on me and scampered off with someone else, someone that I called my friend. When I gave him everything I had to offer, he was gone. The shame consumed me. Not only was I used, but cheated and broken. My heart in a sea of pieces, no longer full, but in waves of sorrow. My world like being stuck on a drifting sea boat, consumed with nauseating sickness. There was no escape.

Soon enough, though, my eyes were beginning to clear not only through tears, but to the reality at what I had been so blind to. I was young and trusting, too trusting with the person who seemed to take all of me, for nothing in return. How completely shattered I was to see him wrap his arms around her, when he had done the same to me. My heart wrenched and twisted together very much like chains. However, the chains that shackled me to the hurt and shameful naivety of my age were broken. I was made for more in this world than to cling on to the past. The past does not control me any longer; it does not identify who I am. With it, I am stronger.

I woke up this

morning and I was

no longer sure. Please hear

my confession.

Hold on,

it's

night for

me and we get confused

in my profession.

I'm a watchman

and a listener too.

Believe me, that thing

of which I dreamed in time

of day was something new. But

whether angel or devil it's slipped away.

It made me wonder though, if what I do

has meaning or does it just lead to

lots of screaming? Now I feel itchy

with unspoken fears of the type

that creep in upon the guilty.

Of them there are

some in every

place as I should

know, for I visit

them at home.

My work's all

about sneaking

under beds

in the main

or scritching

fingers on

window panes.

Sometimes I

rattle rusty

chains.

Last night/

stroke day

I think I may

(and this is

where it gets

unclear) I may

have reached a place of grace where no demons lurk.

I had a dream in time of day as politicians and preachers say.

But truth to tell I went to sleep a jerk and waked a jerk as well

So much for dreams, now back to work at peddling screams.

“I woke up this morning and I was no longer somebody’s son, brother, human. We sit around a drum, like the seventies hobo’s warming by the fire. Everything is still too new.

People walk around like zombies; not because of any pathogen, but because the power went out. Everything just stopped working. Kerosene lamps are alive now. Older cars that run only on gas are now coveted.

Like in the blackout of 1966 in New York, the population lost all sense of decency. This city is a war zone. 

Some of us had the same idea; the subway tunnels.

Rat meat. I wonder how long before we run out? No. There are too many of them. We just have to be aware of our surroundings.

Where did the power go? Terrorists? Science experiment gone wrong? Where is the leadership?

I’m sorry mom! I wish you had waited for me instead of going shopping by yourself? There are no rules. If you had just waited…

I burned your building down while they were all sleeping. They should have helped you. There’s no way that anyone survived. Eighty is a long time. Happy Birthday.

What happened to society?

I woke up this morning,

And I was no longer there.

My mind was in the stars

And my body in the cosmos.

My dreams outweighed reality,

Whether I was awake or asleep.

My heart was on the moon,

Watching over those contained

By the gravity of their thoughts.

I felt above the world,

Free and flying high out of the atmosphere

Of fear and shame and insecurities.

I was an astronaut,

Exploring the expanse of space

That is better known as my mind.

I was no longer in an ivory palace fair,

But in pain and a place that was harsh and unfair.

Everything and everyone that once I had known

Were gone away from me, like a bird that's flown.

How I long for all that I knew, my attendants,

The saints, the Cherubim and Seraphim.

This place is so dark compared to where I was.

I feel evil here, where there was none at my home.

I feel danger. No this place is not my home!

This has to be a bad dream, a sad mistake,

For this is just to sad to take.

Oh I feel so dizzy and I really have been busy

Helping those in need that's my job indeed.

Oh Mother where art thou!?

While I'm here I will do my best

For my name is Benevolence.

I woke up this morning and was no longer an idea tucked away into the recesses of his dark mind. There he was, the stool on which he sat hunched his back till his shoulders ate away his neck. A single light hung above us casting shadows over his pallid face; leaving the rest of the world in oblivion. His concentrated gazed flickered from me, to the pallet in his hand, and back again. A cocktail of anxiety and madness kept his eyes wide and unblinking. His hands worked confidently and the brush glided over me like a skater on untouched ice.

I could feel myself begin to take form. My body curved and stretched and swirled with the surrounding paint. My eyes were wide like my creator’s and two cool hands rested on my elongated cheeks. I watched his brush dab and mix together reds, oranges, yellows, blues, and browns. How I longed to turn in my two dimensional form and survey the masterpiece taking shape around me. Finally, with a thin brush and a quick stroke I had a mouth and the banshee cry I had left behind in the dark abyss reverberated through my being once more.

I woke up this morning and I was no longer surrounded. No furniture, nick knacks, carpet, not even my bed. I lay in a field in mountains. There was no house at all; it went the way of everything else. The funny thing was I recognized where I was in the field. It was where my bed, and by default, where by bedroom should have been. Slowly I got up cold and wet with dew, also naked. Whoever or whatever had done this wasn’t screwing around. The ground itself lacked any proof of a home once standing there; grass grew about undeterred. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. That’s when I noticed something odd, okay also odd, the air smelled better, cleaner.  Looking around I saw the trees too appeared a little off, smaller. Younger perhaps? Neither were there houses on the nearby hills marking my neighbors. For a brief second I thought I was dreaming. That is until a chill kicked up and nipped me in my dangling bits. Perhaps because what I had been reading, I thought time travel. There was nothing around me simply since it didn’t exist yet. But that couldn’t be right.

I woke up this morning,

And I was no longer breathing.

I sat up in the bed and looked around.

Tears flowing,

Eyes red, 

Sobs echoing in the room.

I stood off the bed,

running to my wife,

I wanted her to curl up in my arms,

So I could calm her down,

wipe off her tears,

Stroke her hair like I always do,

To tell her it was going to be fine.

Yet she didn't hear me.

My comforts nor promises.

I turned to my mother,

Begging her to hear me,

Wanting her to listen,

Dying for her words, her chatises and her motherly bothers,

Any of them really, to be directed at me again.

To tell me to comb my hair,

Brush my teeth and look like a man.

Yet she didn't hear me.

My begging nor pleas. 

I woke up this morning,

and I was no long living.

I stood in the room and looked around.

My body still, 

Breathless, lifeless,

Silence emerging from it's mouth.