It is dark this morning,

and these pages

seem cold and unyielding,

fighting the words

tooth and nail,

almost unresponsive.

 

I am awake,

but within myself

my sleeping inner child

just grumps,

and turns back over.

 

He knows his days

of waking

for the walk to school

are done.

He knows

that it is I

who must now don my coat

and step off merrily to the job.

 

That little boy inside,

is not asleep.

I know

that as I rush

to stumble out the door,

late again;

he is smiling

and laughing

at the great joke

that is being played on me.

 

I know,

he wonders briefly,

before the sleep covers him;

why I keep falling for

the oldest joke in the world.

While I

curse traffic,

and cold coffee,

and deadlines,

and taxes.

 

Sometimes,

in between moments,

when life is slow

in the early morning;

I think I can hear him,

giggling

and pretending to be asleep.

 

HG – 2019