I can’t sleep.
My brain, it won’t shut off.
Circles and lines
Thread together to create
Color, light -
Light, streaming like dust through my open window
In the purple air.
How foolish I am
To think dreams live with the stars.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

Most people think that sadness grows
Like a patch of dandelions floating away
Or a shadow with the setting sun.
They’re wrong,
Of course,
Because they do not understand.  
It is not their fault
But that does not make them any less
Ignorant.  
Sadness just is.  
Settling quietly, and, when you finally notice
It’s all encompassing.  
It is the sky, the sea.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

I am an asymptote.  
Stretching out a hand to humanity
Almost, I can feel their acceptance
Brush by my eager fingertips
But the fallacy of hope is dangerous
And I am left untouched.
A magnet that can’t help
But repel itself.
And my fingers are ungloved
And turn blue in this cold place
As I am left to stand alone
Waiting.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  





I look into a mirror made of sand
My face crumbling away with my breath –
The bits of grain become a desert,
A sea of beige
I am left to be lost in.
I do not know what I look like
Past my skin.  
This not knowing, it should scare me, but
Somewhere, in a place I do not like,
I relish the confusion.  
How sad you must think me
For enjoying
Not knowing
Who I am.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

Fear is something I pretend
I have never felt
With my line smiles and hollow talk –
Black, caustic acid dripping from my teeth
As I judge.
Who sits in my court?
I don’t know –
Everyone perhaps,
Or the people that remind me of myself.  

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

I feel the ground beneath my feet
As I walk to my future,
A dark tunnel,
Lighting my way with matches –
I don’t know if I’ll reach the end or run out first.  
The ground, it is cold, and shifts
Until I am falling without the pinpricks of fire
To highlight my blind spots,
The matches scattered in the midnight air.  


I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

I breathe in loneliness
Until my lungs ache
With stolen air.
Until my arms,
Laced with blue rivers,
Are touched by Moses.
Until my iron heart beats,
Rusting away.
Loneliness is like skin,
Layering my bones, my muscles –  
A coat for thin membranes that knit together
A stomach, a womb, a liver.  
Everyone needs skin
So that they do not fall apart
Their soft parts leaking onto the granulated floor
Until they become nothing more than water.
I have mine.

I shut my eyes
I do not dream.