Day Break is a prose poem by Jack Rusher, published here Monday, August 06, 2007. It is part of Poems.
Waking up after far too long.
The journey continues...
Long left drifting, dreaming and thrashing in sweat soaked sheets, visited by sinister specters, rotting revenants, vampires of spirit and flesh, were-lawyers, zombies crying for brains, brains crying for vats, vats crying for cybernetic killing machines, righteous tax collectors, flesh-eating ghouls, argumentative libertarians, Republicans, and every other kind of monster that stalks the night unwatched by the wakeful, at last I stir.
Blink. Stretch. Yawn.
I crawl from mattress to floor, bruised and blackened, one eye swollen shut, blood purpling the flesh of my limbs from the inside out, making unsteady progress from belly to knees, from knees to feet, from bedroom to kitchen to eat. Eat. Must... and I do, until bellyful and thirstful, then drinking, then eating, then rest until daybreak, when I rise again, the Lazarus pose struck in a dawning doorframe, and walk to my horse, climb back on, and ride.
Wood smoke in the air, a dog at my horse’s heels, the journey continues.