not mine to allocate

give me my mornings and i will love you well. all i ask for is an hour. without the sighs and cracks and morning stories and voices of others. these all will serve as an annoyance as i wake and walk. know that i need this hour above all else to warm to life, to pull back the curtains and blinds window by window, door by door. it is sacred, the sounds of heavy curtain fabric gathering and thin plastic blinds tapping. click. click. tap. like crackling incense. these traditions are my hello to the world. the sensations of morning beg my devotion. wood floor, frigid from the night, kiss my feet and cool my body. the railing on the stairs, chipped paint and all, greets my hands that are too wrinkled in a similar fashion. an empty house is ideal for such tradition but if you are there, you will be peripheral to the movements and motions of my morning.

give me my mornings to pull a small handful of almonds sans shell, smooth and pale on the inside, from the water-stained glass container with orange trimming on the kitchen counter. the outer layer, brown with many grooves like unsanded bark, will soon get stuck in my molars. the only cure for such a predicament is watered down orange mango juice that is too sweet on its own and an uncut banana. cold. hard. mushy. textural juxtapositioning.

and even though time is not mine to allocate, give me my mornings.

and if you cannot give me my mornings give me my nights.

one day, some day my request for alonedom may change.

but if it does not.

be gracious. and honor small petitions for silence.