Awakening prompts a glancing checklist:
Same place as last consciousness–
Darkness or light–
Feel my bones collect, my eyes adjust–
First blink: lids dragged over gravel or oil?
First move: any pinches, aches or strains?
On my feet, the day’s first inhale,
a wet finger to the wind.
Last night the pings of paranoia
called through the curtained phone
closed down for good–for the night,
disturbed the blank peace of erasure,
electric muted screams of digging rebuke
nagging disappointment and broken rules
known only to those who hide them.
Ping: You don’t know…
Ping: You don’t have…
Ping: You are not…
Ping: You …
The device pinged and dinged,
begging me to bury sound deep in darkness.
And I did.
The morning checked in misaligned,
a misstep of hungover, awed silence.
Roaming the days hunkered inside me,
downward dream-filled head of cotton
clear cuts paths of fallen dead trees;
upright sight, moving back like Mercury,
the illuminating specks piercing a miasma
best trailed in side-step unresolved truth,
prick the skin like sand in a wind storm
abrading hope-possible of reconciliation.
In the gaze of the other 
