My eyes open against my will
Sometime early afternoon.
The covers pin me to the mattress
Like the full metal body bib dentists use
To protect an unborn child from x-rays.
I don't want to move,
But I drag my body out of bed into the bathroom.

What's this?
Along the hairline on my forehead,
Nestled in the gray brush,
An egg --
A crimson alabaster egg
Has appeared there overnight.
I touch it, gingerly, wondering...
I shrug and go back to bed.

The next day I find
I can open only one eye.
The other lid is too heavy to lift.
The mirror tells me
I have what they call a shiner.
What a surprise. I surmise
The blood from the crimson egg
Has trickled down between skin and skull
And formed a deep purple pond
In the bony hollow of my eye.

Did someone punch my lights out?
No. No one has touched me.
Not at all.
The crimson egg, the purple pool
Are what I've earned.
They are my reward
For beating my head against your wall
Over
And over
And over.