Every second rings dully in my ears,
and somehow the passing minutes still feel so loud.
Sometimes I think I’m tired,
because my eyelids feel like they weigh more than the dissipating stash of pills I keep in the back of my underwear drawer,
and it requires a real conscious effort to keep them open;
but the only thing I can really feel is this horrible restlessness
leaving claw marks that vandalize the inside of my ribcage.
This thing in my chest - I can’t tune it out. It’s so much louder than everything else. I haven’t been able to hear my heartbeat in so long I
fear I may not have one anymore.
Maybe if you spent half as much time
listening as you do grabbing,
you would’ve noticed that my cold,
clammy, hands still haven’t stopped shaking.
I drowned in the lake that day, you know;
that second Wednesday in June,
and I waited for you to jump in and pull my body out of the water like you said you would
but the water is calm,
and I’m still waiting,
and maybe that’s why all these people talking to me
sound so far away
—distant;
like how things sound when you’re underwater and
the world above just keeps going without you.