The echo of the rain has changed  

to sound like the ocean and  

there’s an earthworm making it’s way  

across the center of the floor.  

Am I romanticizing this?   

Warnings in question form 

 

as the noise in the kitchen  

rips through my gut, guilt 

searing like diarrhea because 

she’s awake and cooking, 

 

and I’m awake and writing.  

I’ve brought my coffee to bed. It’s just us, 

her and I, two against the waves  

crashing—peaceful  

if I would let it be that. 

 

Of course there’s them as well, 

two slumbering men— 

well, a baby boy and Aziz, 

slayed asunder in a heap of sleep noises,  

sent out toward the fire she made upon waking. 

Such different beasts under the blanket. 

 

Such different beings under the water, 

that I can’t hold on 

to the victory of being awake 

before they are. My only equalizer   

of guilt soothing competition 

a careful tally of who does what and when. In my early morning  

coffee haze brain though, 

we aren’t alike enough 

for me to be better than them.  

Though the temptation to believe this  

comes later, as the caffeine sets in.  

 

Endlessly, the rain drips through the ceiling, 

brings puddles to the kitchen floor.  

Don’t know how the worm got inside, 

but she’s here now. When I get up, I pick her 

out of the puddle. I put her down 

on the highest part of the tiled ground  

and hope that it’s enough.