Photo by Silas Baisch on Unsplash
Each morning I haul myself
out from the depths of sleep,
pillow a life raft, blankets a tangle
of fisherman's net trapping my legs.
Voices on the radio tow me in,
sometimes so sharply I don't remember going under,
other times so weakly I gasp and cough chestfuls
of dreams from my leaden lungs.
Dreams stream from my hair,
catch between fingers and toes,
weigh me with fragmented memory.
The taste of ash in my mouth,
limbs bruised where you grasped them too hard,
fresh ache of a loved one dead, alive, dead again.
Some dreamers skiff across the night sea's surface
in fast-moving vessels, wake easily each day.
Me, it's a wonder I don't drown.