c'est la via

by Caleb Lamb

Time to try to wake

Early birds catching supposed worms.

Bastardly birds best give this one a break

My stomach, as the molten Earth churns

Shattering any mirrors of self-perception

Eyes, Red, like golden sunbursts, fried.

No unknown snow, white, far unlike anticipation

Step-father’s words hurt my mother. She cried.

School, time to play the fool, never-ending.

Coffee, biting harder than any bitter father

Long overdrawn breaths, fawning, fake drowning

God— when that final bell dings, I fall a bit farther

It’s only then I begin to notice

I’ve been wearing white, stained by bitterness.

He rolled over to bury his nose in the cotton, eyes squeezed shut, grasping at fleeting wisps of sleep. This had been a good one. A freckled girl sat under a tree, leafing through an old book. She got up and ran through the woods, away from him. Turned back. But then he woke, and she was gone. So he met the predawn with grudging acceptance. Rolled back over. Extracted an index card and pen from beneath his pillow. As he scribbled the dream, like he did every morning, he longed to know why she had turned.

He slipped the card back betwixt the wrinkled planes of sleep, and sat, slumped, hunched. The Sun was still on its way around the world. It wouldn’t arrive for another hour, at least. Perhaps he should have a coffee waiting for it? The polite thing to do.

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