My Morning Routine: A Chronicle #WriteAPageADay #680

I wake in the hush before the hush before the hush before the scream of the clock,
a clock that is not a clock but a jagged sunbeam gnawing at my eyelids,
a gaping hole in the fabric of unconsciousness where I fall through,
upward, sideways, neither direction nor decision—only emergence.

The bed swallows me, spits me out,
the sheets wrap like tentacles, a domestic kraken restraining the notion of standing.
I am an egg, a possibility, a sliver of something unsolid.
The floor is made of cloud or treacle—either way, it resists me.

My feet (are they mine?)—
phantom limbs until the cold tiles remind them,
that they, too, belong to gravity, to waking, to ritual.

A mirror leans into me, whispering accusations of face and form.
I negotiate with the morning stranger in the glass,
promising coffee in exchange for recognition.

The coffee is not yet coffee; it is dream dust, brown alchemy,
disguised in a jar that forgets it was once ambition.
Water convulses, a tiny apocalypse in the kettle's belly,
steam writhes upward like souls unchained.

Sip.
Swallow.
Another sip.
I inhale the universe in increments,
becoming less ghost, more human.

My thoughts arrive late, dressed in mismatched socks,
clumsy guests at the breakfast of existence.
The sun slinks into my window, a guilty cat,
and I, still unbecome, still unraveling,
try to weave myself into the fabric of morning.

The phone flashes—a rectangular oracle,
infused with the pulse of the outer world.
I ingest fragments of headlines, hollow hellos, pixelated echoes.
Each word another stitch sewing me into this waking life.

Teeth—foreign bones in my mouth—
must be tamed, scrubbed, ordered into civility.
The brush is a metronome, counting seconds of existence.
Up-down, left-right, round and round,
a prayer for mint absolution.

Clothes?
A question posed to the wardrobe,
a small infinity of fabric murmuring colors, textures, disguises.
Who will I be today?
Which skin will the world recognize?

A sudden hunger curls into me, hollow as wind through a canyon.
The refrigerator hums, a mechanical priest offering cold blessings.
Eggs crack like thunder in a tiny universe of oil,
spatters narrating a story older than time.
Toast surrenders to heat,
turning golden as if kissed by a sunbeam too lazy to rise.

The sound of a spoon clinking against ceramic,
a rhythm older than memory,
tells me the world continues beyond this kitchen.
Somewhere, alarms shriek like exiled banshees,
cars exhale their breath of progress,
pigeons compose letters in the sky, unwritten and unread.

The ritual of socks—
one foot, then the other, symmetry asserting its quiet dominion.
Shoes swallowing my feet, tight-lipped and unyielding.
The front door looms,
a portal between the half-formed and the world expecting form.

Somewhere, the day waits, a beast at the threshold.
It does not ask if I am ready.
It does not ask if I am whole.
It only opens its jaw,
and I, unfinished, unraveling,
walk willingly into its maw.

The street hums beneath me, a river of tire treads and hurried feet.
Morning is a symphony of horns and voices,
the scent of diesel, damp earth, bread baking in secret places.
Sidewalks, dappled with sunlight and forgotten stories,
carry me forward, though I do not yet know my destination.

A bird—black, sharp, knowing—perches on a streetlamp,
observing the migration of sleepwalkers.
It cocks its head as if to ask, "Do you remember who you were before the morning took you?"
I have no answer, only a brief hesitation before the traffic light commands my next step.

Inside the train, the air is thick with coffee breath and yesterday’s fatigue.
Faces blur together—some nodding into sleep, others lost in glowing screens.
I hold onto a metal pole, anchoring myself in the tide of strangers,
my reflection distorted in the smudged window glass.
Outside, the city stirs, stretching its concrete limbs into another unfolding hour.

Work looms ahead, a distant shore I must navigate toward.
But for now, I am only transit, only motion,
a thread pulled through the great needle of morning,
stitching myself into the seams of another day.

#Poetry #MorningRitual #Surrealism #ExperimentalWriting #Existentialism #UrbanLife #Dreamscape #PoeticProse