i got out of my house for a 3AM walk
to a creek with what/whom i shared
the silence of holding my own hands
when that familiar hurt that curls around
my tongue and strangles my breath,
finds me again

my voice weakly exhaled the word
"look" a few times while my
throbbing mind tried to decide
whether the breath i was listening to
was mine or not, or if the feeling
in my palms as the grass pressed
into them belonged to me or not

i still don't know what
i was trying to look at

somewhere in the air was the scent of the
perfume my kindergarten teacher favored
somewhere between the red and blue paintings
my teeth made on my knuckles, was that
l i t t l e  v o i c e
telling me that tonight was a few steps backwards