Posted on January 17, 2010 - by Rasham

5 am

Its early now or late still, and I’m doubtful and hopeless and resisting of life;, I awake it seems with the memory of having been something else and cry when I realize I am trapped in an earth-made suit of human flesh, uneasy knowing that it is 2 am and I am this thing for many hours to come. There is no idea of future, no promise of anything but uncertainty when you wander outside of your subconscious, loitering long enough to fry your dreamland security and to remorsefully accept that you are who you are and you are in this body and tragedy turns despite the spastic fits of your angry rain dance, that memory’s disaster is that it exists and that it feeds from the same form that ensures a sloppy survival in the least. And so I await 5am, my favorite time of day.

5 am; my favorite time of day; houses appear vacant, roads that are host to surface pushing and pulling suddenly appear at peace, they are kept company by the spiny winter tress watching on either sides of the sideways wrapped in sidewalks that are barren like the shops and showrooms that are sometimes lit, sometimes not.

5am is my favorite time of day; I stumble and stand in the garden dividing two directions; it wouldn’t be so bad if I were alone in this world. I scurry by the side of a window where a blue glow is radiating from the backsides of lanky walls and see a girl wearing a halo of aquamarine; she is standing above the stoop within a shell of a diner. They say that spiritual energy is strongest in the early morning; she is dancing with her broom and stops to watch me watching. We smile, proof of life in an otherwise dead world.

5am is my favorite time of day. I move forward, further into time though my place in space makes no difference. I take a seat on a bus after a nod to the driver, squatting distantly from the suit breathing an alcoholic’s flame but I only smile: 5 am is my favorite time of day. Some long bearded man with a wizard’s gleam has his roots in the front yard of a tired church. His eyes are magnetic spheres of translucent ice; with the force of my right hand I pull the overheard tassel and command the driver to stop. At 5am I conquer the barren road and surrender to his gravitational pull, becoming a tiny element flying in the final orbit of his astonishing presence.

He was stroking the hair on his face and smiled as I crept: ‘ahhh, 5am is my favorite time of day’, he grumbled, ‘when all the watchers of the world watch the once waking slip away, when the owls stand their pinnacle stand, and the spiritual energy is thrust upon the crust of our temporal world, where time is ‘atickin though in a lick of space the coordinates of change align, and oh how the mad ones gather in isolated chambers chanting to the saints; these sinners want to be saved but salvation from what? 5 am; like a mirror it is a global reflection; no lies no disguise just the heart wearing warriors roaming the frontline of an ambiguous parade. And you, my deary, my darling: what brings you out at 5am is not the stubborn desires of the soles of your feet to collect in miles the lengths of city streets…no, you were loved and now love has gone and so you’ve come to me to seek the potion that would have you once again complete…’

‘5am is my favorite time of day’ I say, ‘I kissed the heart of this silver warrior goodbye and I ventured outdoors to play. I left to find a place to stand in a churchyard by the stones stained with the names of those who once engaged the game but failed and fell into a grave that feeds the earth; she once was my home though now it is simply
5am in the front-lines of this ambiguous parade and I am, it seems, not so alone. But even besides my own curious stride and never mind my wounded pride I feel I must find those people who are mad enough to live blinded by the insanity of their own imaginative solutions, let it rain searing stakes in soul slicing bouquets and make me mad to be so alive! 5am is my favorite time of day as I join the lonely in their ambiguous parade, as we watch the once waking world slip away.

A hunger pain and I whinnied away; I thought of the man by his side I had at 4 am laid. I wondered why I felt this way, so deprived and luxuriously weakened in the eyes of the saints- could it be that love for me is the war just the same as for the robbers and the thieves and the drug lords and their ratty ways? 5am is my favorite time of day, not to be so wrapped in the comfort of a cave in this maze but to be shocked into discovery, sparking electricity generates to turn me on; I become active and awake, thirsty for whatever remains of yesterday’s civilized rave.

And so I say, ‘I cannot stay the palm tree sits under the moon where gunmen crawl and I miss you my sweet silver groom but I’ll be alone in the outskirts of this wretched urban grave, wandering around at 5am, my favorite time of day.’

‘No potion for completion just reconciliation in the act of folding your chilled hands; now pray, my deary, my darling, but not be saved and not to be whole, not to be bothered or covered or sustained or without your unique mental mold; sit and listen to your entire body breathe, it knows how to carry you into the next morning scene, take a sip of this very air you shine bright enough for even the Gods to care and slow your pace when the hooded ones stare they will look at you to learn the lessons you will dare tell the story of life’s love and loss, of its bloodless wars and its childhood scars, of its poisons and filth and plastics and soiled food, its leeches and laws and jailhouse cocoons, of its slavery systems and systems of deceit, of its crooked fame and its broken dreams. But do not forget what the wise man says: the true character of a man is revealed to himself in the absence of light at 5am.’

‘Then who am I at 5am?’

‘My deary, my darling the reason I am here is to figure the same thing; I’ve been coming here to ponder year after year. What I have found? Not an answer or a piercing sound; not a premonition or image has stained my busy eyes, just myself in a moment and more slipping down this muddy slide. People have come and gone, they have asked and wondered too, some have spit or asked for change, others have come to beg for a spoonful of anything that would make them complete, they come to me because I stand, not moving and never obscene, I offer what I can, it turns out a moment of exchange is more valuable than the wealth of the wealthiest man. To have been here for you is my purpose today, this serves you as well, my deary, my darling; my 5am runaway.’

I left him there as the one star showered the morning haze and as I pulled away he laughed, he grumbled, he pointed to the sun’s rays. I looked upwards and felt nothing more, ‘such is life’ I said with a shrug, there is much to do to; I’m in the midst of a war. The clock strikes 6 and I am no more inspired; just another happy body with a mindful of squandered fire. No wonder 5am is my favorite time of day, when all confusion is silenced, where the world is at its mystical break.