Sleepwalking On A Shirley Sunday

I have outgrown this bed, this house, this town These cloudy days that follow sleepless nights Minutes, hours, days, weeks Of wandering foggy alleys of asphalt thoughts Falling into crevices no one cares to fill The mirror, passed, grabs hold of my hand I wrestle away from a face I do not recognize With her wrinkled brow and dimly lit eyes She like a straphanging stranger On a stagnant subway car Will be forgoten, by the next assigned stop Morning coffee, bitter, but swallowed the same As when I, then, gained it's refreshing jolt Springboarding me into the deep end Of chlorine clear choices, a pool of promises Now I shuffle the kitchen cold tiles In slippered feet towards the daily headlines Of a world gone mad Swearing it doesn't directly effect me In my muddled puddles of pushing on The old gray cat looks to me for comfort He, too, searching for a new place to sleep Tired, from prowling the empty corners You, not long ago, and not nearly long enough Once occupied How much rain can a cloud hold Until too heavy, explodes Winter long, but no Spring skips her date To dance It is only this provides a purposeful placing Of one foot in front of the other I had ballerina toes, just months ago Now I walk in freshly poured cement With eyes that stayed up way too late My soul wrapped in a tattered bathrobe Looking back on the brilliance of 'then' While sifting through the laundry of 'here and now' On automatic overload All while sleepwalking on a Shirley Sunday Exhausted and exploding to leave