Life Inside a bedspread

It started in the half-light,
too cold to accept morning  
waiting for footsteps on the stairs,
someone else to set the fire.
 
I stared into the deep weave
of my candlewick blue waves.
The threads opened as I fell through
landing soft and sickly, coughing
away my school days.
 
All left behind as my travels began,
chased and often eaten by giant dust mites,
sailing rivers of spilt milk on rafts of cornflakes,
running for cover in showers of spittle.  
 
I became the map reader of myself
counting to three before I spoke.
It wasn't just the bedspread
I found a way in on wallpaper
staring at the pattern willing it to open.
 
I could leave any situation from any station.
but always followed by a distant drum beat
flexing the thin layers I had created
a murmur for my own inquisition.
 
I lost my talents to puberty,  
forced to listen as I disrupted myself  
and diluted others.
forced to be part of the world  
outside the weave.