I’ve memorized the dark of my room now,

the path between the door and the bed posts

that lash out and mark my pale shins,

memorized the width of the rivulet I make

between our two sleep bodies by rolling

just slightly away.

He told me his kink was “morning sex.”

Indeed, I feel extra naughty

at approximately 6:36 a.m.,

get off on licking the sleep

from your eyes. I reach my peak

when over pancakes I get a glimpse of the deflated

anniversary balloon in the diner shellacked

to the curtains and hanging sad.

In my dream last night I lived with my parents

and we were skipping town. Their faces a

mishmash blur, they told me I’d have my own

room; a window seat, a walk-in closet.

We arrived in the evening. My dream self

paced through the room, which became a set of

stairs, which became a zigzagging blue

slide into a dirt hole. No the slide is

a yellow water slide in Texas and cherry blood

spills from my toe. No my toe is my future

child’s toe that I bandage. No my child

is a portable first-aid kit no my child

is a pixelated projection on a weird white wall

no I will not just spend my life as

the tender of this tin of bandaids!

You shouldn’t end anything

with your character waking from a dream.

But I can’t get out of this room

without at least one eye cracked.