the road looks like two aisles of Christmas lights
all turning their sides into the dim night
asleep in the comfort of sheets
bought by people who love them
the dogs homed to the fences of my neighbors are all asleep
the mice and the raccoons are walking back home
the birds have whispered their prayers
the stray cats are done for the day
all in the tug of night
ready to sleep
but the ants
and the cockroaches
the flies
and spiders
are all out
restless
passing by sleeping children
and drunk men
lining up the instruments
setting up the dance
free and safe
words on a soldier's tongue before
residue and ripped cloth are hung by their guns and boots
I am awake in perfect harmony
a balance of night and day
of an agreement the moon and sun had in the beginning of time
I am a pest
reincarnated from a man who's days and nights
were whiskey and the smell of a ******'s breath
luck and karma spelled on the bents of my body
I was not a good man
and now
I am nothing more than a spec of darkness in your vast blue sky
nothing more than stains on pearl walls
in the mornings I wake
dreaming of my body being shaped back into a pulse of a mans
promising to be better
I wake to a toddler staring down at me
step on me
hit me with your storybook or
hide me
release me to the corners I belong
I am nothing more but the ripped spine of a leaf
I am nothing more than the roughest patch of a child's palm
I have always been nothing more
I am nothing more
I am nothing
and yet I have
been given
time to
be