Waking Life Poem by JAE JAE

She wakes to hear his whining in the early morning,
calling like fallen angels to gods, they
break from a sleep I couldn’t know, where
lights twinkle off and become flickers, flinching in pale
contrast to the waking life we’ve sown

She lies here breathing half-breaths so as
not to let him know she’s left and come away from
dreaming of him, shattered spiritual sleep that hushes
innumerable daytime doubts that he won’t fall back
into the dream’s thin fabric again; waking to find she’s still fragile,
still wanting to
unravel her skin so that every inch
of her body can be next to his.
So that every hair in every pore
can twist in submission to each soft push of air
I hear leaving your mouth
in a whine.