you wake up feeling like a freshly peeled wound,
thirsting to squeeze some profundity from your first words,
but it’s usually jest for the same deity’s name everyday,
as if he were right there next to you, sleeping in on his day off.

you develop new senses living alone.
like it or not, you’re talking to animals after a while,
cruising zoo cages for vacancy signs.
and sooner or later, your bedroom gets flooded
with a sappy post-natal umbilical feeling.

and now you lie there, waiting to be born again,
while the 3:00 train howls its way across the hillside below,
you hope for a landslide, a victory for nature
vs. a harshly nurtured public, yourself included, of course,
but hey...numbers are numbers.

if only once, you could really wake up underwater,
you’d probably drink the whole ocean for breakfast with joy
you’d spit out the story i’ve been waiting for,
and sing yourself to sleep again.