Release

He'd thought I'd heard the alarm go off.   

               But, I didn't.    

     "Hey, Babe," he said, in his morning voice, "You'd better get up."

My eyelids opened, slowly, as the rest of me tried to make sense of my surroundings;
     the taste of bad breath on my tongue.  

I managed to speak a long, drawn out, single word.

     "Whaaaaaaaaat?" I asked, confused.

But, before he could answer, my reality slowly sank in -
                there would be no shower . . . . . .  today. 

     "What time is it?" I asked.

     "7:15," he responded.

Forty-five minutes PAST my wake-up hour.

Annoyance quickly replaced confusion.

     "Why didn't you wake me?" I asked, as I haphazardly stumbled out of bed.

     "I thought you'd heard the alarm go off," he answered.

As I attempted to steer myself toward the bathroom, I thought,

           "What PART of me lying STILL in the bed, NOT MOVING or 

                                   MAKING A SOUND

                    made you THINK that I had HEARD the ALARM ? ? ?"  

I stood in front of the sink, surveying the night's damage.  

     "Could be worse," I thought. 

I turned on the faucet, and filled my cupped hands with water; 
     the shower, looming, in the corner of my eye.  

And, as the warm wetness spilled from my hands,
                                           across my face . . . . . . I let it go. 

Just like that.

I let it go.