Unable to find sleep
familiar.
Listlessly following dark streets
familiar.

Wordlessly speaking,
as if actually searching for a reply
from my oldest friend
the cool lonely night.

But we need no words,
only each other's company
familiar.

Give me one more drink,
I think I might find the bottom.
What a comfort to sink just beneath
Breathing in this cool and burning filth.
Through the warm portal
I can slip down into forever
with my arms outstretched.
It's endless
and unbearably deep.
You can taste it,
it's coming.
I can feel it.

I think I might be dying.
God I hope I do
with my guts spilling up
and running down the hand
checking my pulse again.
If not now,
when?

Small and consistent
Sixty beats per minute
Wristwatch chirping from the table by the couch
Filling every silence in my home,
No sacred sleep is left alone.
Chirping from the table by the couch

If you were my sight,
I could never be blind enough
to forget you.

It's raining here
All this rain is so good at finding every hole in my brain,
Stagnating and providing home for bug and disease.
You might have understood that,
But leaving you to your own crawling things
While I learn to love mine;
It's apparently a betrayal.

Your name was good news,
But the sadness in your face
Was hiding the light of your smile
And the slightest look would easily unclose me.
So I’ll keep you lit,
A small match-fire memory,
But only from dark can there be light.
Though now I have closed myself as fingers,
Leaving you unfairly, unkind,
Painful doubt in your eyes.
The last words to you of mine,
“You should smile more for strangers.”