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