on the predawn airwaves
awake and alone
huddled about heat vents and blankets wrapped
while the house still sleeps
sharing waking hours with the milkmen
the furnace wheezes and sputters
the coughing fit of fevered dreams
in unquiet slumber of vague dread
between two states of being
and in neither understood
the native grows foreign
spoken freely to deaf ears
it could have been different
if only you had let me breath
anonymity is precious to shield the projection
when they think they know who you are