Alarming Wake-up, by Kevin Finch

You are my alarm
The gadget that wakes me up in the morning
You are set in stone to get this stone of a man out of bed
And I must tell you a story…

You went off, making noise in my ears, screaming at the top of your alarming lungs, making silence escape my room

Startled, I, with my half-asleep hand, put you on snooze
I am sorry for that.

Yet I do hear the conviction in your voice
But I made your job a lot harder than it needed to be
I made you a part of my daily routine of laziness.
How? Well, to be truthful, I hate mornings, because it is always so hard to get up
It may have to do with the fact that I don’t go to sleep on time
But anyway, I took advantage of you
Expecting you to wake me up with your oh-so-delicate touch of rambunctious noise within the close proximity of my body called my private space
I can still hear you saying, GET UP!
You know, the kind of noise that scrambles the thoughts in your head, disrupting dreams in your sleep, pushing reflection and meditation out of your brain into the air of nothing and no return
I am sorry for sleeping a second past 6:30
But in my defense, it was early

But for the sake of the moment I guess you can say I misused you

Your job description was always simple, but I made it difficult
Making you sound extra alarms, causing you to repeat the action of notification
As you played my favorite tunes, in which I must have made entertainment to go along with my disobedient slumber
I have abused and violated your snooze button

Unprepared for the day, I stay in my bed of relaxation, knowing that it is time to get up and be productive

I stay in my bed of relaxation, knowing that it is time to start, initiate, and innovate
I stay in my bed of relaxation, knowing that it is time to shower, read, and meditate
I stay in my bed of relaxation, knowing that it is time to execute
I stay in my bed and plan around what could have been a productive start of my morning
Pushing your snooze button for 5 more minutes
As if I am asking you to allow me to slack off and waste more time
As if I really think I will be less tired and better off 5 simple minutes from now

Simple, simplicity, easy, my day starts off a lot like this

My unrealistic and careless acts of laziness has destroyed and destructed our relationship
Many people take you for granted every day, only requiring you to wake them up
But I may be worse
Because not only do I expect you to wake me
But I already know for a fact that I won’t get up
So instead of letting you rest until I can train myself to awaken

I use you and make you do the work for me

It’s just a lazy process of my imitation of “betterment”
And I have involved you in this process, causing you to do the hard labor for me

This is not the equivalent of a pity party

This isn’t an effort to do better with a sob story on top of an apology
I promise I am not wandering around the weak and shallow aspects of my life
Pointing out error and flaw in my actions
But I am advocating for change
I am advocating for meaning
I am advocating for substance
I think it would be quite selfish of me to ask you to continue to wake me up every day
But as I sit here on hollowed ground in embarrassment and disappointment
As I try disciplining myself to wake up every day
Can you please tell me what the NEW purpose is for you in my life?
Because you, alarm, have already woken me