The POTW: Verse Til It Hurts

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POTW #838
(Week of 28 April, 2013)
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This happens to me more often than I'd like.

Perspective Panic

It happens sometimes that I'm grudging awake
With some wandering itch or invisible ache
When the realization comes on by surprise
That I am the person behind my own eyes
That there is a me who's alive and who thinks
In one quick flash the universe shrinks
To the length of an echo the size of my head
I anxiously lie there and panic in bed
Identity is a disquieting twist
I try to imagine I didn't exist
The cosmos is the single frontier
And I'm floored that I somehow am actually here
I think about thinking of thinking of self
Not just as distinction from everyone else
But as being specifically consciously me
The only existence that I'll ever be
Through all of the length and the contents of time
This is the shoebox exclusively mine
I can feel all the sides and I'm counting my breath
And it seems like to go back to sleep would be death

Copyright © 2013 by Dave Grossman

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