I met a stranger.
It wasn’t quite morning,
but it was bright enough to see his silhouette forming.
His flesh was laden with a million bleeding microsleeps,
“Stranger, oh stranger,
how strangely must’ve stars aligned for us to meet.”
Then, the sky was lucid.
Then, the pond was inert.
Then, the world was my ashtray,
and my body was the earth.
now my chest never seems to stop hurting,
and my thoughts aren’t ever quite clear.
why are you leaving me, stranger?
“you’re mistaken, I’ll always be here”

now I’m alone,
and it’s late,
and I’m laying in bed,
and I know when I wake,
I’ll be sleeping instead,
and I’ll go through my day,
as I’d always before,
and then wake, and then sleep,
and then wake up once more.
***
now a million ceaseless awakenings past,
I still hope for a miracle:
real one at last.
And I’ll sleep through a billion awakenings more,
For, a true one redeems...
And makes sense of them all.