It was suddenly twenty-eight minutes
after three in the morning,
and I found myself in your bedroom.
Your sheets were cheap and creased,
your quilt was older than you,
and your pillow cases didn't match.
There were three pillows, and you had all of them.
I didn't mind.
Your breathing was the steadiest thing in your life right now,
and your back rose and fell
as regularly as your hopes did in the daytime.
There was nothing on your back -
whatever was there
an indefinite number of hours previously
had joined the convention of disorganized stress on the floor
that slept a mere seven and a half inches from us.
The mattress was as warm as we were,
and the whole of it held tightly to the scratched hardwood floor
that was probably still owned by those that lived here before you.
There was an appalling lack
of glow-in-the-dark stars
on your dull, cracked ceiling.
A cut-up excerpt from what will soon be a long story
about growth, uncertainty and lives we never expect to be a part of.