A New Day

  You are standing on an island in the gray of the grayest day. All around you is coral reef, protruding from the water, dry and lifeless and sharp.  The ocean laps and pounds at the sides of your bulbous pedestal, though high above where the waves can't touch you, you are tempted to look down and touch them.  "This is life'" you think, as you lay your head down on the reef. And as you drift into dream, even that part of you that sleeps contains the world you hope to escape, if just for one second.  Dreams, colorless and scarred, they are what touches you deepest as you wake up knowing that this place you stand has finally entered you.  Yet you stand and strain your eyes to see a new gleam sparking out over the pulsating water, and as you look out at the pink turning to orange to gold, you don't know who to thank, but you are thankful still.