When I awake it begins.

Or perhaps it already started.

Images and places I have never been rubbed from my eyes with the blurriness.

Good and bad colors chased away by sun.

But my perspective is now stained.

The sun takes longer than a day to bleach away the rest.

***

I am haunted.

A presence my own but different.

A bleed through of another fragment of self.

Manifestation of what my mind clings to.

And though that fragment is gone, the injury is my own as well.

Not grounded the same way as the previous night.

***

It could have been a vision of beauty.

Experience that was everything I wished for and more.

A taste of the better out of reach.

Day now wasted on a tease.

Drowned out by a shade of what could be.

Washed out and bland.

***

It could be I was stalked by a horror.

Threat to self or those I love.

A shade of a true fear.

Heart racing even after the light is let in.

Seeing afterimages every time I close my eyes.

Too dark to stand.

***

These are the days lost to dream hangover.

Altered but survivable.

Died down to my bones but temporary.

I will bounce back in the end.

Coming around like the sun.

You might just have to leave me in to clean for a few more cycles.