sleep deprivation:
I wrap a blanket of the stuff
around me
and drink another round of
coffee.

no, that's a lie. I'm not drinking
coffee. I'm drinking--
get this--
sorrow and you know what?
black.

sleep deprivation:
is it too much to say that I'm
waiting for you to call and
answer that heavy question
I'd asked two days ago.

why do you love me?

no, that's not a lie. I really did
ask him that.
don't believe me?

well, he's _5 and I'm not
seventeen years enough to get
anything out of the way he
feels for me.

sleep deprivation:
enough to hallucinate circles
and twiddley-lumps on strangers.

suffice to say I'm waiting on the
insignificance of the moment,
the unimportance of the lifetime.

like the lifetime of a star on the other
side of the universe:
she burned herself out and is now just

a ten cent ****** with a smoker's cough.

sleep deprivation:



                                         ha, circles.