Daybreak dawned seconds before the bus gave way to my body
a mercurial collapsing of wheels eating gravel
I now know what is godsent:
to have eyelids like a light switch where nightmares ebb darkness.
Did you hear the dogs barking straight towards the dim?
Cyclical guttural growls
like rewinding a cassette and playing it all over
while mourning the stretch between three and five in the morning.
Between each stone-cold silence
stood the whirring frequencies of a circuitous scratching on the walls
all white noise and stark black pen.

Halfway through dusk  
we settle that it must have been the sounds of Cerberus
begging each voice that drags me by hair through hell to stay
as each night I scrawl an escape route to stability.
I hoped that it was those hounds of Hades
who were operating the vehicle
that skimmed just over the brim of the outer-layer of my skin
but denial takes a weak form in the passenger seat.
I claim ownership of the wheel
death-gripped two-handed
falling short of hitting the target
a day-in and day-out ritual
where I remember
that repetition
can ruin