A leaking clock keeps you nose up with eyes peering through night-flooded sky towards glow-in-the-dark stars, childhood mementos, to keep those other shapes
from seeping in, like snakes slinking over drawers when they were socks left hanging, or a hand haunched achingly through the wardrobe door was only a shirt sleeve, but
now light escapes the curtains, becomes a silhouette of a man out of the second-floor window. It's ok, you remind yourself. You roll your head over to drink, drink, drink in the ticks.
Dissertation draft idea. Based on childhood fear of shapes in the night. I used to (and still have up) glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling back home.