Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time… – William Shakespeare.
Awaken before the rooster crows two times.
Break the laws of weighted blanket gravity:
Rise, hunched, from the swaddling of your sheets.
Stumble.
Scrub cinematic nightmares out of your hair,
Lather night sweats and midnight regrets away with lavender foam.
Let the baptizing water unbend your spine,
Uncurl your fingers from the defensive fetal fists they become
When you lay down to sleep.
Dripping before the mirror, anoint yourself with oils
To smooth and diminish because, as always,
You are too rough, too much for the world to handle.
Thus blessed with alabaster-jarred unguents that make no difference unless you have faith,
Let your cup run nearly over. Bewitch sluggish neurons,
Raise eyelids and expectations,
Answer the questions of the morning.
Not fit for human consumption before the third cup,
It’s not your fault that the humans who consume you cannot understand.
Let them choke on splinters while piercing sunlight
Planes the knots from your mind.
Let nothing impede the stations of your daily cross:
Lifted only when lipstick and earrings adorn, in costly array,
The crucified soul that
No grace can save.
