Time Trial

My bed is a dust bowl

of cereal crumbs.

Past closed doors,

I allow myself 

to be a monster.

I stretch my sleep

as far into the day

as the surface tension

allows. The gallows

of sudden return

to limp consciousness

yawn and stretch

with the rest of us.

I stole an apple,

the crispest one,

when the world

was sleeping.

In my guilt,

I had the delusion

that the only way 

to correct the wrong

was to eat it whole:

stem, skin, seeds
and core.

The hour 

of indulgence

is running out,

soon comes the 

long, trodden age

of the working man.

I am in a rush 

to start having

fun forever.

For as far as I can see,

there is a train of hurdles,

each one in the shape

of a smiling moon.

I bend to the challenge,

vaulting lazily past

my stumbling ghost,

fixing the race.