I toss, I turn.
My blankets—too warm,
then too cold,
like storms across my skin.
My thoughts go.

Never silence—
just a pain burning behind my eyes,
a mind wired
to a clock not built
for this reality.

I get up and circle my room,
Sit down, play a tune,
Write my ghosts onto paper,
Reshape my pillow.

A breeze,
a hum,
a passing car—
all rise like ghosts,
but none loud enough
to drown the ones in my head.

“Please be quiet,”
I whisper to my mind.
But instead,
it grins and says:

“Remember what you did 10 years ago?”
“Wasn’t that moment strange? Embarrassing? Wrong?”

I give no reaction.
I’ve learned:
engagement feeds them.
So I lie there,
Handing off insane,
hoping the ceiling swallows me whole
And take away my pain.

I cannot shut off—
not until I’m lowered, into a silence
Surrounded by the mournful,
deep enough to dull the thoughts,
until I’m sealed away
and my mind finally softens.

I heard the whisper on the shore,
Walking along the hot, dry sand.
It burnt the soles of my bare feet.

The hot, humid breeze singed my ears.
Autumn, autumn is calling, it hummed.
We hear her chant from far away.

My friends in Australia called out to me,
It carried across the vast oceans and seas,
"We'll send her your way, friend, but

Only when we're good and done."

you light a match
the flame forgets
I close my eyes
echoes pass through us
I can't tell, is it
a mirror or a door
we are suspended in shapes
that keep on crying