Titer

Day 3

"What time is it?"

Groping, darkness, sheets and restless warmth.  Grasping wrist, no watch and too far to see a clock.  Mumbling.

"Well?"

"Unh, twenny-ten?"

Shifting, an out-of-sight lean and sigh.

"Shit, I'm late."

Mumbling.  Half-sleep.

"Henry, I have to go."

"Yep."

Sleep crept back, full-on and heavy.  Dreams crest and break, nightmares swirl in the deeper blue.  Afternoons of cacophony, turning leaves, wind shivs concrete and swirls, decay and encroaching snow.  Meandering thoughts, trudging the same ground.  Words take form and fall to the ground, cover the floor in thick layers, formless, freeze.  Arrested soul.  The year breaks, jagged edge on a river bank, rocking on a bench.  "Henry, where are you?"  A bitter reply, mouth forming thoughtless jabs, pointless fury, unintended seething.  Restless sleep and a slow-motion tear in the fitted sheet along the corner of the mattress, spreading without heed.  Late winter light reflected on weathered, lasting snow, illuminates thick layers of dust, discarded hair, breeding an untended stench and rot.  Unused food, mail piles, cardboard, aluminum.  A venturing body, unhinged tongue, jailed identity, all searching to be another definition.  Denial.

"Wake up, Henry!"  My own voice, coming with the shock of revolution, bombs blossoming in vapor trails, weasels run rampant, a world moving forward under young risen-fists, tidal crashes and despair, toxic clouds and panic, shuddering world from a dead winter, a new year of spinning chaos, tantalizing ballet grasping the apocalyptic jet set, gold hoarders and hatred, hawks and doves switching feathers and catching field mice, earth shaking ancient roots, grasping the shoulders of solipsism and shaking, shaking, shaking.  The indentation in the bed smells like jasmine.  Oh, Henry, what have you wrought?

Ripped from that long sleep.  C-c-calm?  It's streaming in your blood now.  Drains from the mind and sets upon the stomach, voracious wolves deprived of their tender kills, forced now upon a lesser feast.  Morning keeps the hunters fresh.  A new voice from the desert.  The security of anonymity, a new confessor, and once again looking for benediction.  New fatalism and lucidity left to dreams.  "Welcome back, Henry."  Tears streaming over that manic smile fading quickly into a gray distance.  Its mouth opens at the last moment, speaks, ""Blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee."