Mornings

I write in my half sleep, I am words even in dreams, they look laughable in the stark unmagic of mornings. There’s a brief moment each day when I am rational, there’s a short morning walk and a window of work, when I am not still dreams, a lifetime lived in the fantastical, I’m about to turn middle age and I am still full of childlike wonder, that is a gift. New York is sweltering even in mornings. I feel the precipice, too close, I feel the gaping darkness right beside me and if I only stumble, if I only relax for a moment, I will fall right in. 

There’s a path in another direction, there’s a path that leads away from the Illness, I know because I have walked it, I know now that I could find it familiar. At the edge of the canyon it feels impossible to reach, when the pebbles tumble from beneath your feet down the steep ravine, you don’t know how you’ll ever make it to safer shores, but you’ve done it before, don’t forget you’ve done it before, don’t forget you can reject punctuation and choose dreams, don’t forget as long as you are alive you still have a chance to make it home.