Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

It's dark in my head. Deep, dark hazy black. Driving water beats and prickles my scalp. The walls are closing in. I bang my shoulder--I should be warm, but it's cold, very cold. Pound, pound, pound. Why is there always pounding?

Blood. Blood, then pain. Why does my body know what's happening before my brain can register?  I can feel the sharp sting of warm blood run down my leg. It just begins to pool between my toes before it gets washed, swirled away. I open my eyes and watch my essence trickle away.

PoundPoundPoundPoundPound.

"MOM!!! Where's my home-reading? MOOMMM!!! MOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!

Right.

Not Armageddon. Not the Apocalypse. Not even the Second Coming. It's my morning shower: shaving my legs (read: aggressively, though inadvertently, removing a 2-inch strip of skin off my left shin) with my eyes closed (because I'm too damn tired to open them) while the no-account-nose-miners hammer on the door screaming inane questions their father could answer were he not entirely and purposefully engrossed in his book and Bran Flakes.

Oh morning. How sweet you are.