God I Am Alert Now

 

Donna Dallas

 

And knowing I’ve been asleep for so long 

in my ignorant bliss

 

My wretchedness 

 

Something climbs the wall of my heart

and I hope it’s not another 

illusion 

or facade 

because I’ll fall right back in bed with these 

 

Immediately 

 

As of now - only now and for the next couple of seconds 

I am smoking alert 

you can smell my awake 

the incessant beat rolls me forward 

even this train I have boarded 

has a heart 

that reverberates into my own 

 

I don’t weigh answers any longer 

when they come 

I accept 

 

When I slow down

I accept 

 

This heart

bubbling blood

thick and alive 

removed from some ancient mummy 

tenderly wrapped in muslin

gently placed in an urn 

to live on 

in some vascular sense 

of the hearts powerful continuity 

 

even if some particles of blood-dust 

burrowed into the bleeding bulge

within my chest 

on the A train 

fully alive

cradling this package 

​

      Donna Dallas has appeared in a plethora of journals, most recently Beatnik Cowboy, Horror Sleaze Trash and Fevers of the Mind.  She is the author of Death Sisters, her legacy novel, published by Alien Buddha Press. Her first chapbook, Smoke and Mirrors, launched in 2022 with New York Quarterly. Her second chapbook, Megalodon, launched in 2023 with The Opiate. Donna has served on the editorial team of Red Fez and NYQ.