my first near death experience
I may have been nineteen
maybe twenty
when I nearly died
in my sleep
in my bed
sometime past midnight
below my bunk bed
an old chair smoldered
from a cigarette ash
slowly filling the room
with smoke
who awoke me
I’ll never know
but I was commanded
to wake up
as if from a dream
wake up you fool
lest you should die
when I escaped
the death chamber
the other residents
of the boarding house
quickly came back to life as well
hauling the chair away
meant for my demise
april two thousand twenty-three
copyright j matthew waters
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