My palette is empty
after over-busy school
and tense homework.

By the time dark night
staggers onstage, sleep is my
longed-for, **** muse.

I’m greedy for sweet,
numb sleep or perhaps to dream
love-flushed fantasies.

Three AM awake, aching with lateness
wrestling alone
even if a significant other is next to you
or little breaths flutter in next rooms

Shadow boxing ridiculous odds
in a world and heart full
of treacle thick worries
weighting your punches ineffectual
just like in the fear-fever dreams
that woke you

You skirt the maw below
resting place of your almighty failures
as the sick orange glow
breaches curtains and makes
familiar shapes judgmental
tut tut tutting at your uselessness

Here, you are defenceless

Here, the black thoughts insinuate,
find cracks to prise and plant suggestions
of a better world without you in it:
the limit of you

Dig deep, my human kin
quietly get up,
make a cup of tea,
write a message or two
to yourself, or for others later

Bide and wait
for the mute loved heaviness of sleep to return
or the welcome thinness of morning light
to wash the darkness back

In the new day, reach out,
with steady voice or bubble-snot,
be heard and seen
by friends or strangers
and try to heal again

being stuck, they say, is uncomfortable.
i believe it’s not necessarily true. for instance,

...i like getting stuck inside my room and read for a day or two or three or four, forever.
...i like getting that last song stuck in my head for a day or two or three or four, forever.
...i like getting stuck in traffic with my pen and paper.
...i like getting stuck in the moment...perhaps, with you.

getting stuck is an opportunity, staying stuck is unhealthy

staying stuck on a single story out of convenience regardless of its completeness is poison mistaken for remedy

It didn’t work out. sigh
What were the odds? Statistics...
- love isn’t baseball.

Where do regrets start?
Should I regret the sunset
- or mourn holding hands?

Or shame desire?
Baseball.. Well, at least he
didn't get to first base. =]