Ghost Days

Ghost Days

It happened again. At least it seems that way.
		I woke up before the clock.
It used to be a cock. I’m sure of that. A simple letter, nothing but a stroke of my pen.
	Now it’s a clock with virtual hands projected on my cell phone; no longer a cell surrounding me and my despair.

No longer the cold fear, piss-smelling impotence of being forever trapped for something I didn’t do...

or I did but only seemingly because those things just happen all by themselves

		and trap you right there in the moment and you can only wash your hands
moving and
	pulling and
		scratching and
	breaking

and you can’t even remember where you are or how you got there.

But every time the cock sings it startles you back...
		into a sweaty face trapped in a torturous cell to a life of prison and despair,
and it’s just then when something begins to
	break away
		and sense a space away from the tormentous rigidity of my fate.

	Right then,
right at the moment of freedom
the clock on the cell phone becomes visible
and I don’t recognize where I am
	—again—
		and get up

and swear this time I’ll vacuum and clean and read

	and create
		and eat well
as I put the sweat smelling clothes from last week
		and drive again to work
	and try to borrow money
		to take my daughter to the movies
just in case she decides to like me again one day.