Now I lay me down, in bedlam—
nighttime stories never end well—
and I can’t think to breathe,
the sweat is soaking through the sheets.

Streetlamp lights send shadows skittering
wild and wicked through the blinds; they
cast themselves like hieroglyphics
upon my walls: (is this a sign?)

But no, it’s just a fever dream,
I’ve seen these lights a hundred times, and
I’m always contemplating life:
(a radar blip; a satellite!)

On nights like these,
when, wide awake, I
hysterically search for some escape—
(the heat in here is overwhelming!)
–and as I feel my center slipping,
I look to you; your picture framed.

Grounded in an iris, carved—
or crystallized—out of ice,
(my favorite way to meet destruction
is to be frozen when it starts).

But Frost was right, in his desire—
(you know, the world will end in fire)—
and so I will not sleep for days,
as hidden flames rise ever higher.