One Day (it will happen)

One day soon, it will happen.

You will wake up

in the middle of the night,

or wipe your eyes

in the morning before

the alarm has sounded.

You will not be thinking

of the shower,

or the day ahead of you,

the struggle as it is referred

to in the Leonard Cohen song.

Your feet will slip into the slippers

and you will walk out of your bed

and down the hallway,

unless you are sleeping on a couch -

someone else's,

someone who was kind enough

to put you up for the night.

You will remember the time

when you should have

or almost did but didn't.

The birds will still sing in the morning,

and the butterflies will gather their nectar.

The sun will peek through

the blinds or the curtains,

whatever window adorations

there are in the place in which you are at

when this happens to you.

Somehow the world keeps on turning

and the morning newscasters

will look into the cameras

and tell you about things that

are happening someplace else,

a place you may or may not have heard of.

The stories still go on and weddings happen,

children are graduating school

and becoming adults

and there are others who will bury their dead.

Church bells ring

and traffic lights turn green

and then yellow and then red.

You will still be walking down that hallway,

in a house that you may or may not be happy in.

One day it will happen to you,

the pains may start at the base of your spine

or the back of your head

or maybe in that hollow cavity

where your heart is supposed to be.

You will reach up for it,

like a swimmer braving

the waters when they have lost their footing.

But that is ridiculous because no one swims

with their feet alone. Maybe like the spelunker

who momentarily looses her grip

on the rope and then slips rapidly down

before the pegs that were placed into the rock,

jolts her to an abrupt halt.

You will reach an empty hallway,

even if you are on your host's couch,

they have already left you, alone,

to care for the plants which are already dying,

to kick up the dust that has gathered on the floor

and which will settle on the shelves of books

you have glanced at but will never read.

Maybe before you slip onto he floor -

carpeted or wooded or perhaps tile -

I'll leave this to your imagination now -

you will notice the spots on the ceiling

that look like they might be slivers of mica.

But to you they will appear to be diamonds -

like that ring he gave you before he beat

the shit out of you every day, or that ring

that you never received but always dreamed about.

Who knows.

One day you will fall against the floor

and then into that box that will enter a furnace

or be forced to carry several feet of dirt above it

that was prepared for you long before

you decided to get out of bed that morning.

The day will go on like it usually does,

the doves will sing and

the cars will slither by your window.

Maybe there will be a light,

like that lamp you forgot to turn off

the night before you devoured that bottle

of merlot or like the flames that

sputter from that burner you left on,

that candle you neglected to extinguish.

Imagine the plane,

blazing through the night

and a small pod falling from it.

The mushroom cloud will look so beautiful

before you close your eyes,

and your hands will reach out to touch it,

reach out for the air you are inhaling one last time,

reaching out to catch that pill

that has escaped your grasp.

Your brown hair and scalp,

seeping red once you have made

that impact on the floor

that may be wood or carpeted or even tile