When Spider-man Opens His Eyes (revised)

Sometimes, when I fear to be alone,

I entertain the night, the only thing

I can't get out of my mind.

It is Blanchard Lawn.

I have left the city behind,

that contracted darkness.

I wake in the morning. I roll over

and gaze into the sunny eyes

of my magazine-cover girlfriend.

I don't feel much of a hero anymore,

more like a normal man.

I will kiss her on the cheek,

the step out the window.

Buildings in this urban landscape

string out before me 

like the beads of a rosary;

my nightly wanderings

become my most earnest prayers.

I escaped my room again

last night, drifted in a maze

of suburban town homes, the dust

of a million commuters, pilgrims

on the same dismal paths,

to which I have seen no end.

I find freedom in the fight

and the desperate pain

of a forty-foot

fall. Sometimes suffering

gives me gratitude

for life in all its forms-

sometimes I wake in a sweat;

I hear voices over me.

Escape. It is still Illinois

and I don't know what to do.

Those nights, I watch T.V.

to keep myself from sleeping.