Lonesome in a Bottle for Breakfast

A lot of people would describe me as a morning person, but what does that really?

It doesn't mean I don't wake up exhausted or have wrinkles under my eyes. It means I wear a smile like makeup, the kind of smile that holds up your eyes as if they had little suspenders. It doesn't mean I just roll out of bed the minute my alarm goes off. It actually means I wake up restless 2 minutes before the alarm even sounds. It means I wake up to dead silence, occasionally contrasted by a swell of echos from the freeway or passing overnight train. It means I welcome the tranquility, sometimes mistaken as lifelessness, that will soon be disturbed by the chaos of the day. A part of me knows that this is the only time I really have any peace and quiet to myself, so I bottle enough of it up to last me the day. I take sips of it between the packed hours of obligations and work, hoping that it's enough to remind me that I am in fact not dreaming. That I am awake, sitting here, writing to you.