by Arden Leigh 

When waking up is a task
Like numb but tandem pain in the brow
Like the hypothetical attack of the flask
Like what killed some moms and dads
Like attack of the phantom inane
The only shame
Is in the skepticism 

A crooked place from being placed adjacent to the floor
Every minute every second
Everytime you’re not just bored 

Like the tv in the attic
In your toes when they’re pins n’ needles
When you’re feeling sullen or sapphic
When you’re feeling anything

In go them pins again
In go them spikes like some death grips bend
Some summers before, there were bats in the house
Six or seven born from the gore of the trees
Laid themselves at your knees
And you learned the right way to click your tongue and fingers
For a flying mouse catch and release

 Remember when you were young
Closing your eyes for hide and seek?
Do you remember all the colors you could see?
With your eyes pressed into your elbow
And that, as simple as it was, was living
Into green May, the foray of fields
Elementary functions and your parents and teachers
The eternal freedom behind the fences
Makin’ make-believe at recesses
And counting the hours down to lunch like it meant something 

Remembering
Reminds you that you might just be breathing
Filling your cup up hot for your fall time walk
With the needed teeming of missing things near