In a Haze

The ceiling greets his pounding head
Through squinting cobalt slivers of eyes.
Welcome back, it jeers, from oblivion
Into this land of the oblivious.

He dresses on autopilot. No thought
To his shirt, same pants as always.
The taste of cheap beer and smoke
Assault his weary mouth.

Thoughts dulled by his muddied mind
Eyes wincing at even the thought of daylight.
Dark hair juts up randomly
The only part of him that looks happy
To be here.

He feels exactly the same as last time
Exactly the same as always.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t
Make the same mistakes. Oh well.

Outside, the morning still grips the earth,
A child of frozen mist, clinging to her mother’s
Late autumn dress of fallen leaves
And dying grass lined with dew.

The fog would be yet another annoyance
On this drab and featureless day,
If he wasn’t still finding the path out
Of his own personal cloud.

Lost in the morning twilight,
He watches houses, people, everything
Slowly fade in and out of his sight
In and out of his life.

A haven without time or memory
And he finds some small measure of comfort
In this fleeting moment
Of quiet, of peace.

Ghostly wisps of life drift
Through the silent branches
Of the barren and stoic oaks.
Pillars of certainty at the edge of perception.

Like a memory half forgotten
Only the barest outlines
Reach his troubled vision
Shadows of themselves, visions of the forgotten.

He pauses to take in the mist,
And for a moment, his whispered wish for solitude
Is almost as loud
As his lonely prayer for companionship.