Ineffable

6:22 AM

We’re not doing this, objects the conscious bit – the bit that sees illusion.

And with that, I’m awake.

For far too many gut-wrenching moments I am winded.  Dizzy and eyes-wide-open blind. The dark and silent room is at once too large, shrinkingly small and ear-ringingly noisy. The January air swims with heat and I feel branded. I want to cast about and clear the cob webs, but they’re sticky and they cling.

I stare at the red numbers of the clock: unassuming, solid and then finally changing. One minute of reality.

6:23 AM

I blink and see the run is rising. To be thrown into sunlight from a place securely lightless is disorienting, nauseating. Tossed from ship to shore I awake to nothing more than pale morning light. It was just a dream.

And yet I feel unhinged.

Dreams like these are heady things.

6:24 AM

I am exhausted. There are limits, you know.

12:33 PM

Tissue thin-images float around my head and settle, like dust, on my mind. I am stale with recollection and flattened with grief.

Curled snakelike at the back of every thought is 6:22 AM and really, that’s where I am. I never truthfully wake up.