Outside, golden hands make the light change colours.
Hypnos tells me it’s okay; I tell him I’m fightless.
Cold daylight chews me into nighttime pieces
and perhaps if I tell the sun what I’m reading it will stay a little longer.

Everything past the window is uneven and loud like the ocean,
melancholy and pointed, all knees and fists and teeth.
September falls into October and paper stays paper,
though it used to be trees somewhere in the sun,
but the real truth is that there is emptiness in everything, not just beds.

October is coming in like a train whose whistle echoes for days,
an old steam engine with one hundred thousand windows,
whole rooms for watching time but no space for little tides, big blinks,
or eating up a list of books I must read before I turn twenty-five.

Light retires with a soporific goodnight and all that is left is a dearth of sleep,
imaginary owls and other big-eyed birds contemplating stars.
Morning will sound like breathless trees stretching new leaves,
clouds whirling, tiny winds darting through my sheets until I am grey again.
Sleep is just dust and I hate feeling filthy.