You are an angel
yet mortal wounds stain your skin.
You reach out to me like
I am heaven,
when all I know is sin.

I feel like a body in a sea of people.
Invisible.
No one to know
No one knows.

Perched in front of a fireplace
One could be thinking of anything,
Distant castles and battles to be fought-
Dragons and demons and lovers lost
But as I curl up on the brick and place myself only inches from the flames
I think about how I wish the fireplace were real
And that it was in a much smaller house
So the warmth could chase away the cold and darkness from the farthest corners of the room.
Suddenly I remember my aunt and her fireplace
Situated in a house even bigger than this
As I watch she sits down on the cold marble hearth and reaches for a pack of cigarettes hidden in plain sight, puts one to her lips, and lights it
Exhaling the smoke into the flume
In my imagination I see myself taking one from her
Lighting it
And I inhale
And I exhale
Finding myself once again alone in front of the fireplace that isn't real,
the house still cold and dark as ever.

We love to sleep
But hate to sleep forever
Death is an everlasting reality
In which we pray doesn’t take over
we fear overdosing on sleep
Because we know not where we wake