there are nights when i’ll tire myself out chasing cars and city lights or writing about constellations i don’t even know, and there are nights like this, when i can’t help but steal our happy endings from the poems you haven’t read. there are nights like this, when your name dislodges me from the orbits i learned to tiptoe in just so i can forget what walking next to you feels like. there are nights like this, when i wish that our songs will wane with the moonlight.

there are nights like this, darling — when you’re asleep while i’m out here trying to unlearn the patterns of missing you — nights when i miss you even more than i want to.

there are nights like this, darling.

there are nights like tonight.

in depth,
the moon settles,
behind a quiet black,
stretching like a sea beneath her,
and though she sleeps,
she casts so much sound.

freckled there in the sky
they tremble,
bursting flashes of white;
and hopeless below,
fingers trace,
eyes shutter closed,
while the crickets hum,
the trees rustle,
and the being of time
erases itself momentarily

Slowly, sneakily
It starts creeping back in
Right around midnight
As the medication fades
As I prep my next dose
I feel my past
Hovering over my shoulders
Threatening to return
And just the thought
Fills me with so much fear
I rush to my little orange bottle
And wait for its serenity
To bring me peace again

You tried
To love
A girl

On the verge
Of losing
Reality

A stage
In her life
Where

All
She could
Do

Was
Write

As a
Form
Of
Psychiatry.