It's 1:45 am

I am listening to the ocean inside your chest.

Your shoreline fills my ears with white noise and reminds me I'm not alone inisde the sleeplessness of my bedroom walls.

I've never heard lungs fill so effortlessly with waves of wet Georgia air.

Every exhale is an excited sigh. An introvert, greeting a common acquaintance.

Sometimes, you swim against the current, end up drowning in the abundance of oxygen, and the rip tides role in.

I stopped playing lifeguard
because your inhaler is always close by.