How much time passes
between inviting the sun to hunch in the corner of my room
canary and screaming for the world to stop orbiting
and suddenly it’s night
and you realize it’s been seventeen hours since your body has made a request to move
knees pulled up to chest empty and heaving white
every bone in your body an orchestra of creaking
soundly against the crickets leaping off the fourth floor of your balcony dingy
the background noise of your dreams
blood the scent of pennies ripe in the air
smeared here and there
across all things unwanted
where apologies thrive on eleven cold dollars an hour—
you never asked for this.

I am better
at tallying each shade my room turns
because it has nothing to do
with the cerulean in my face
and this is the only place
that I allow warmth to be subjective,
when it’s breaking through windows with hatchets
instead of being waited on
watching the mouth of my wall clock nailed shut
frozen in a minute and speechless,
I have no desire to dial an ambulance
bear witness to the whirring American frequencies
of heads turned 180 even during the scuffling feet rustling rush of rush hour,
I’d rather hear the ringing in my ears
of each ghost that has ever followed me back home
quaking in translucent skin.

I heard that three a.m. belongs to the devil
I haven’t tested that theory since I was seventeen sacrificing and surrendering
but I do know what happens between the hours of thinking without doing
wanting without acting
the bed a fort you are asked to hold down by that hefty feeling
in your feet that reside two blocks from where your legs used to be,
and there is no path filthy with orchids,
when dark is just on the brink of waking,
but you can’t tell the difference anymore.