I am afraid to close my eyes.

Perhaps in the slightest second, while I was asleep,
the world swerved beneath my bare and naked feet-
a light yank, a clumsy trip,
a slip forward, a clean sweep,
and the people I knew turned to strangers,
and the strangers I knew turned to people
with indistinguishable faces,
who walked past the shifting silhouettes,
and stepped on the uneven shadows
that plunged inside the opening
of concrete pavement cracks
where everything that mattered,
where what we used to be,
evaporated into the mist of tears,
and the brightest sunshine
which blinds our eyes
burned our senses wild with fire.