A Little While Longer

There is a time
Before breathing
Your head underwater
That the lights in your eyes

Pop

And you feel the strong pull
Of your life
And your breath
And that necessary air
Which I feel again now--

with no water.

But why?

There is a time
Before waking
And stretching
And aching

That you feel the strong tug
Of that dream once again

But you fight it
And light
On your feet you come stumbling
From sleep that once held you as fast as the grave

Which I feel again now--
with no waking

But how?

Perhaps I am foolish
Perhaps I am wrong
To think that forever, when spoken by you

Means the skies have no end
That dusk holds tomorrow
That aching for air
Is good
And normal
And fighting the dream
Is not

And there

Is a time before speaking
When thoughts recollect
When the silence creeps in
And buries the mind

That you feel the cold sound
As its rolling
Around
And the room
As it speaks
In a chilling, dull tone

More than all of the words you had plotted and planned
(whatever they were)

Shape unspoken things
That mean more than the world

Which is what

I feel now



(And those questions
And answers
Seem dead to the silence--)



So I guess I’ll just wait
With my head underwater

A little while longer

And hope