I won’t sink anymore

She was breathing in the drastic darkness
as it gulped us down.

I’m in a good place

Wandering the passenger seat for someone’s noisy sobs
before finding them in her own throat.

I’m so tired*

So she flicked on the lighter

No, happy

and drew it toward her eyes
until her face began to melt behind the flame’s watery haze.

Pretty tired

I turned my head and
the cigarette I had seen tottering
between her teeth had become a rolled up
page of Silverstein with Where the Sidewalk Ends
curling slowly toward her lips.