when the last light is out,
when all the shadows coalesce
to form a path of quiet in the dark,

i haunt the halls better than any ghost,
i hold shadows dear more than most.

only in that twilight i let my hunger roam,
appetite too large for the crevices of a wakeful home.

i wish you weren't scared of my famine,
i wish you would learn how to eat me
with something
other
than
a
knife.

i would hand you a scalloped dessert spoon,
and you could pry my shell open,
like the kitchens biggest prize.

another hopeless doctor visit sees me down a long dark hallway.
the elevator doesn't ping when it arrives.

there's only a button to go down.

the doors start to slide into closure,
but an old woman and her gentle-faced son race the door.

her arm, wrapped in clean new bandage is bright under the condensed light.
her son, gentle-voiced, repeats the doctor's orders calmy, without ire.

"he said to gently exercise your wrist three minutes a set, two times a day," he reminds her.

"but you can take it two minutes at a time, to make sure you're taking it easy."

she acquiesced wordlessly at his soft-spoken counsel.
i don't move from my corner nor do i pick my head up.
i don't feel like i'm allowed to disrupt. i bask in the slow light.

the box staggers for a moment before the doors give way to another, darker, hall.
the elevator's light befalls the twelve or so shadows,
their crowded presence marked only by the glint of overhead LED in their flickering, resigned gazes.

the elevator, such a synonymous and direct application of the phrase 'one way down',
sighs and wobbles as i disembark my weight, as if freed of the weight of my sin of thought.

the old woman and her gentle-faced son go left, i go right.

when i glance back at the elevator, the box flickers with dull orange light inside.
the only button to go up is struck repeatedly and violently before the doors close.

and i thought we said,
"we don't go these lengths for people",
and yet here i am,
right before your finish line.

i know only how to be needed,
i know no want.

the phone does not work both ways,
my line has been cut.

do you need me? i'll never know.
can you hear me? i speak from the gallow.

there's no ears to play the broken telephone.