sunrise

The sunrise washes clean the night before. It'll take a dream and polish it to a gleam or a nightmare and wring out meaning. If you haven't slept, then the spark of light from the horizon at sea or over a hill in the countryside or upper edge of a building downtown; it shines. And in that shine lay salvation.
This morning I am alone, not physically just cosmically. Like we all are, I am alone in my thoughts and my actions because I am not being watched. On a good day this will continue for an hour or two into the day's activities where in full view I am living. Eventually the tensions of restraint will take over my spine and I will fall into line. Society knows I will. Society knows. They tell me that I am not insane. I know that I am, especially at sunrise.
Once in line, then I begin to mimic the group. I am no longer my own and why would I be I ask myself. You are a good person is a good answer. It's an answer that works. I'll walk like that man, I'll pick up my tempo like that woman, I'll laugh like that little girl and I'll behave. I am good.
When the group begins, I begin. When the group laughs, I'll laugh. When the group stops, I'll stop. When the group drinks, I drink. I must move with the group, I must sleep with the group. I must feel the group with all my senses all the time.
"close your eyes. What do you hear besides my voice. Close your eyes. Listen."
"Im cold."
"Close your eyes. What do you hear?"
"I hear a train. In the distance, I hear a garbage truck. I hear a baby crying."
"Good. What do you taste? What do you smell? What do you feel?"
"My mouth, my tongue. Smoke. Bacon. Pancakes. I'm scared."
"Now move."
The group knows nothing. It moves about senselessly because it has no feeling. But we give it our senses and it is all of us together as one. A singular breath.
"Next stop Burnside and 8th."
My spine begins to twist. Its time to join the ranks.