Innocence is dead.

It's been fading in my mind slowly, but I'm jolted awake from the uneasy sleep. Watching the bright red numbers change from 2:13 to 3:38 to 4:19 and eventually tossing my sheets aside. Even in wakefulness nothing seems real, its all blurred and surreal. The ebb of reality pulling away and snatching a part of me: like an elastic gumby doll being manipulated, then having its limbs hacked off. A freak circus mirror with a distorted reflection of self and my world: I feel betrayed. The ebb turns to a wave of nausea sweeping over me because frankly, I can't stomach the truth that is destroying the world I knew.

The reality of what I always knew to be purity, goodness, and innocence is as covered in muck and filth as the bottom feeders that survive on it.

Yet a slim glimmer of hope remains and if only
our prayers are heard
and
we hold on tight enough
and
we rise up high enough
can we shake the shit off
wash ourselves clean
and
repent and mourn the death of our innocence