Night sweeps in with its great, black wings.
These rustling, silk feathers that
impregnate my lungs with midnight down.
I lay next to a man who is not mine and I am not his.
We label ourselves Pretenders as he pushes himself into my florid space.
My eyes flutter, a shiver runs through me.

He and I are charlatans, fabricating our worlds as we go along,
composing these ravenous ghosts line after sloppy line
like its our civic duty to make people see things that aren't there;
as if our entire identity resides in our ability to be a competent weaver of words.
My God, is this all we have in common?

This world is bleak in the winter, forced by the earth to be patient.
And yet, this air that rams glass splinters down our throats cannot muster
a flake or tempest to free my mind from this unfamiliar bed I'm in.
I lay next to a man who isn't mine, and I am not his to love.