Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
'I'll do a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use,
2B or not 2B?'

What is it about this drunken town where the snow falls like cement
that made it so easy to fall in love with the delirious nightlife that never sleeps?
It seems like when I’m with you at night I never sleep.

We’re dancing around the cemetery like we threw a ball for souls.
No one believes you when you say you see something from the corner of your eye
but we all feel the chill and agree that tonight we will never sleep.

Do you remember the night you told me to never hold back? ******* I wanted
to cry but I forced a smile through my lips and eyes. I laid next to you with a blank mind
for hours knowing that you think I‘m a mystery. I learned that the train yard never sleeps.

The ******* microwave is broken again when you come home drunk.
You called me a **** and punched another hole in the wall and
I’m scared enough to know that tonight I’ll never sleep.

That bag of ice clutched tight won’t leave his hand jammed in his pocket. When
he gets home he feeds the crystals into the glass and heats it up. Tweaked out
and wandering the streets at three. A woman mutters, “**** addicts never sleep.”

Have you ever dozed off in warm grass while watching
clouds passing lazily by? My god I swear there’s nothing better than
a nap in the sun for someone who never sleeps.

Glass rips my forehead clean open and exposes my frontal skull bone while
strange men hold me down and taunt me with knives and chain saws.
Reoccurring nightmares are why many insomniacs never sleep.

A sensual shower at midnight, that fat hit at two did nothing. Lavender and candles
aren’t working. I’m staring at the ceiling. You roll over and pull me close.
“Leah, please, go to bed. It kills me that you never sleep.”

Streets have even learned my mantra-
"My heart is heavy, but my will is strong"
I recall the way your eyes made everything
go still
Like wires we climb with autumn,
putting our fingers up to the windowsill
We are scared of love, yes
But love should be scared of us

-c.j.

She lived in that white mansion
Up up on the tar hill
All her life she was wrapped in it
Look closely to find her
Between Christmas trees and patio
Spinning under them wishing so hard
She was a fairy and prayed for a wing
Late evening, she creeped under
this tree she doesn't even know
the name of it
Molding foods out of sands
Driving in a plastic car with her feet
Accidentally her right foot was under the car tyre
But kept trying to drive past this root from this big tree
Crossing over drains so gracefully

She told me the good times
When people praised
That she could write her own name on a markerboard
Or when people said she was pretty
In scarves even though
She looked like hell
She told me it reminds her
Of Fleet Foxes 'White Winter Hymnal' lyrics
With scarves of red tied around their throats
To keep their little heads
From falling in the snow
Her scarves was all red too with ribbons pinned on it
That she regret losing it now

Right back when she could wear dresses
Without remarks from her mom
That it felt good when people don't talk
About her hair that is bad everyday
Chocolates were shared without even a thought that she did not want it
Turtles can be kept because there
Were still aquariums
But they went missing the next day
Just like her hamster named Michael
Also this cat she left at a fish market a few time
But got back home like there's a GPS, itinerary and atlas all in its head

When her dad had to work until daylight
She will have to sleep upstairs with mum
In that little space there are microphones of which
She sang songs that find ways until 3 lanes behind her house
She hated the smell of the sofas
She wasn't afraid of heights but
Everytime she looked outside the windows she just get the chills
At nights engines revving on roads
Passing by frightened her so much

Once a burglar got into the room
Where her aunt sleeps in
When dad was working she slept to the room next to her aunt
At 4:00 she heard a distant cry
Up to this day, she doesn't like
The holes on the bathroom walls
She said she could feel someone
Watching
And still there's this trail of size 7
On the white wall under the window
Images of a flower *** moved to the front door
To stop us from running away,
that *******

Now she is out of her own
Beautiful tragic cage
Now she can be found beside this road
Her last step out of the black gates was no tears
I can still feel the echoes from the pictures of her mansion
Like a phantom limb hanging
The air that surround the mansion now
Is straight out of hell
The fog like a poltergeist in her head
Making sounds and moving things
Oiling cogs in my head
And sow the longing deep underneath
To come back in summer and search for her red scarves