Memoir

I have seen more sunrises
while falling asleep than I ever wanted,
closing my eyes to blood seeping back
into gray skin and charcoal sky.

I’ve held my own hand
just to know it still could grasp
another.

I lived so long
on a patch of cloth
on a worn couch
or in a cracking leather chair
that I forgot what eye level
was like.  I looked up at anyone
talking to me because down
is where I did my best work,
my only work.

I couldn’t say a good word
about myself
without imagining
how it would sound in
another person’s mouth,
and I couldn’t get it right.
My spit tasted
of dust bowls
and cedar splinters
driven into skulls
by tornadoes, and I couldn’t help
swallowing.

On the nights when
I did see the sunrise,
I never warmed up.
I welcomed
snow and rain in the morning, better still
if it rained into snow
and everything became deep slush.
That was the only time
I felt like I fit, when everyone was
as cold and sodden as I was,
when the steel shade of the outside world
looked like home.

I look at all that now
in the mornings when I rise
to the sun falling lukewarm
upon the ice outside,
and I can see
how water is still running down the street,
but now,
it’s from the melting.