The numbers make a ping noise
silently
as I sink.
Level after level.
After level.
After level.
It continues past the floor that owns the button
I had pushed.
I wonder if there's a basement
or if I'll sink to the top floor.

I'm lonely.
The sort of lonely that you feel
after you have been crying.
Have I been crying?
Maybe somewhere.
I'd like to meet this place,
I think.
I think that's what I've been telling myself.

"Go visit your tearful home,
the one kept in the dark."

"I would.
I would
if I knew
where to go to find it."

Where is this secret place
Where I continually weep?
The place I have never been?
The place I always linger?
The place that drowns
in the knowledge
that I don't possess?

Everything's on an old rickety scale.
The type that you have to maneuver
with your own fingers.
No digital lights.
Just that balance bar.
The one that you know is accurate,
but can be so ******* daunting.
So daunting
that you don't even bother
to measure.

My types and kinds
are spilling out
of the crevices of the engraved numbers
and the platform
of judgments.

Go stand on its silver sheen.
And tell me what you
see.

Do you see stars?
Do you see suns?
Do you see grass?
Do you see thunder?

Do you see what you want to see?

Do we always see
only
what we want to see?

I think it's time to gouge out my eyes.
Or perhaps my perception
of what I want.