When you first start to wake up
there's nothing fun about it.
It's not like slowly coming to
after a long night's peaceful sleep
in a soft fluffy bed
or anything,

it's more like
being flung off a roof
and opening your eyes
to see the ground
fast rushing up
from far below.

You don't even realize
you were asleep
because there's no time
to know anything,
except perhaps how horrible
things are,
how much worse
it's going to get,
and how you just want
everything back
the way it was,
before.

Years later
there's
a realization
to the effect
that you never hit the ground;
it's still down there,
fast rushing up at you,
just like it's supposed to,
forever.