I wake up and feel death
in the room, sitting and waiting--
the day-owl that hoots
when the sun blazes to every corner
of my mind, taking away
my senses so that time passes,
circling back around itself, as the cold
serpent taking over my body
and saving my head for last.

Beast nature bellows a fit
out of me, my cold hands throwing
objects in reach and the screaming
pierces through my heated brain
with smooth, sharp talons

until I wake up with a face
over me. Not an angel, but not
a demon because the eyes
have goodness spinning in them--
like a light swaying over above,
telling me to follow it. I do,
across cold plains where dark things
curl up and hide against their own hell,
for evil has fear of itself.

Across smooth ground that lets me fly
until I am at rest with a slow heart
that thumps too hard for every
conviction it cannot say to those
that swirled inside.