sleepwalking for one more hour.

sleepwalking for two decades with a protruding gut and
eyes as buried deep as petrified wood,
i’ve dug up a treasure-
a realization, if you will.
everyone will leave when they see the ice sheets on my bones.

a feather without a breeze,
a storm of acid rain,

wind currents in hibernation,

gasping, treading, begging for a direction to open eyelids,
sinking,
sinking,
losing oxygen-

marathons,
pockets filled to the brim with stones,
i am drowning as far inland as a swimmer can be,

i am a cold, cosmic dot and one hour will not burn enough energy-
my brothers and sisters in the cold, i am
one hour further away from leaving this lonely, unforgiving, jagged, racially segregated and
factory farming piece of terrain that has worn down my bones without ever using a blade.

one hour closer to the next heartbreak, to feeling my heart as a vase dropped down the stairs of an apartment complex, friendly enough to feel its walls in my soul like fresh lipstick on my cheek, apathetic enough to leave the shards under the jungle jim for weeks.

one hour further away from the dishonest dream of my grass-stained bare feet, no nails in tires, and mom singing to pop radio while making chicken-
one hour more distant from broken pencils and dad’s empty beer bottles. drifting like a poor, lonely cloud given the horrific gift of conscious thought, i am one hour further away.


sinking.

one more hour of frozen tundra,
i am waiting for daylight to come and pass
as a sheep without wool,
dying much too slowly,

for one more wretched,
godless
hour.