Armor - II

I like to set my alarm early.
About twenty minutes, give or take.
I know that I have time when I wake.

Whether the early sun marks another start,
It's shrill brightness cuts across my eyes,
One deeply in dark thought,
But the other forced to see through.
Or if the fading night stars play their game,
As I watch them wave goodbye,
Back into the past,
Where their constellations mark your name.

I never bothered to learn them,
Any shred of reason I have left,
Has been trapped by emotion.
And somehow it recognizes the patterns,
A sign of my delayed devotion,
My hands reach out,
But the signs only play out memories,
And to open the window would be
To let them go.

Sometimes I pretend that I'm
Somewhere, sometime, someone else,
I clutch my blanket to myself,
A spectrum of opportunity,
My closed eyes see more than I ever could.
The smell of a new dawn,
The first fallen leaf in a wood,
The last drop of rain, falling misunderstood,
Never knowing if it should,
Hold back, it's purity withdrawn.

But it's that musty smell of waiting,
The lingering vagueness, predestination translating
Into various longing, to break out
Of this half-sleep.
But where do I return?

I like to set my alarm early.
About twenty minutes, give or take.
But when it rings, the heartbreaking call.
Do I sleep, or do I wake?