Day by day, as my nights waned
Unto ’nother sunrise,
I waited like a schoolboy
For my school bus,
Distracted by a hundred thoughts
And sometimes by the traffic ahead,
Seeking what was sure to come
Or hoping it wouldn’t at all,
That I might go back home
And relax beneath my soft bedsheet,
Letting my mother’s chores
Lull me back to sleep.
Only that this time,
I am woken up
By a more pleasant alarm
Than the shock I’d get
At the boogeyman hour.
Alert too late,
I carried my sleep
Like a ticking bomb
To sing a lullaby
For a grown-up.
Oh, the things you do for love!
You lose so many nights over it
That you forget how to sleep.
You bleed for them
In every waiting room,
With flowers in your hand
And dreams in your eyes.
You build straw houses of love
And give the monster
Every right to blow them away.
That daily grind of nights
Made no sense,
All that waiting for a liar
Fond of promises,
Who hid their passions
For another heart.
I knew that knell
Was about to come,
But didn’t know when—
Like the call that would
Break every cycle
Of calm and take away
What was rightfully mine.
So many pardons,
So many sacrifices,
All lay in the graveyard
Of my thoughtful mind.
All that wasn’t love,
And all that was,
A weak man’s tears
Trying to catch the train
To a good night’s sleep,
But always falling behind,
Until the final night,
When I would sleep
And you would forget
To wake me up.