Static hums in the pillow
then the groan of seams,
a wet thread snapping between ribs.
The wound’s slow syllable.

Sheets stiffen into shrouds,
crackling down the spine.
My pulse taps Morse:
"Which death wears its twin’s name?"

First the architect. Then the nail.
Gravity dissolves at the wrist.
The chandelier suspends its fall,
reassembling—each prism
a sob swallowed by its own light.

The banished return, trailing
burnt hair and tarnished silver.
The dead rise in their finest suits,
only to melt into origami.

Curator of almosts:
the kiss that drowned at the door,
the apology lodged in my windpipe.
Even remorse unwinds here,
plucking its feathers one by one.

Dawn presses its thumb
against the window.
I let it rot.

The truest country?
This room where the wallpaper
peels into a mouth of no one.

Sleep is not escape
just the needle’s eye
where memory pulls its thread.

Dare me to wake.
The night bends, but never breathes.