Prescience

You've woken with a weight
a pressure, right in the middle
-solar plexus, you remember, pleased-
It's familiar, yet not familiar
Like holding a strangers hand
The feeling that you've lost something
or forgotten something
It's the nightmare not remembered
but still felt

Checking;
your hamster; still alive
whiskering through his bars
Homework; done, though
you're not sure about
the first president

Maybe Mark will kiss you

All day long you wait

Maybe this then, is a grown-up thing
This internal onus, this one big breath
That makes your mothers movements
so quick, so brittle
when she hears the key
Makes your father's step falter
as he comes through the door, hangs his coat
letting in crepey leaves and the smell of
cigarettes sloughing down his shoulders

Tonight, there is no key turning the barrels
No cool night air slicing in ahead of the darkness
The tensity stayed though, a bolt snicked shut
It never really went away