In my room about to
turn out the light and
as I shut my eyelids
I become aware of the riotous
laughter raging in the other room
hysterics and horns like it was
New Years right at that minute
and I'm all alone in the dark room
missing the commotion that will
become the subject of many stories
starting off as
"Remember that one time....?"

So I'm about 12
at my mother's Alamo-esque
apartment with a scarcity of
children my age about
and I'm staring out these
lace-dressed windows at the buildings
and mountains feeling like so
much is happening on this sun-soaked day
and I am still inside watching all the cars
race to places I was never invited
and all the motion I'll never sway to
with this rampant feeling of being
In the wrong place for destiny to strike
It was the wrong time to sneak onto
rooftops at early dusk to spy at
the streets below

In my dream I'm with faceless friends
some look almost familiar
and others features contort as
smoky personas' I somehow recognize
and I'll notice my shoe is tied or that I left
something behind so I
casually tell them to wait
but not one phantom stops
they keep walking with fading chatter
I can never remember
I'm left tying my vapor shoelaces
In a rush
with no hope of ever catching up

I would stare from the edge of my bed
watching the quiet of Charlotte Parkway
while all the neighborhood was sleeping and
I was wide awake
and In those twilight hours when
existence seemed dreamy
I sat on my back and wonder
Was I alive at all?
Was I disappearing...
My body fading into a shapeless mist?
Would I just slip through my bed
when the transfiguration took place and
through the carpet-floor then pass through
the cement basement into the ground
as an etheric substance to the core
of the Earth? Finally becoming
One with the lava turning in the
pits of the planet too far inside
for any soul to find.

I would walk suburban sidewalks
waiting for that mother-ship to comeback
waiting for angels bedecked In
star-freckled garments with fire
caressing their opaque limbs saying
"It is time to leave your old life behind"
Completely with their mind
No angels or aliens ever woke me up
In blinding lights or gusts of wind in
my room at night