Blank and blinking is
the crowded night: retching,
screaming.
The moon wholesome and spilling soft light-
reassurance came easy.
Ease in the form of numbness.
Night was alone, always-
always a homogenous, blurry mass of
varying shades of dark.

I had a girl once-
wholesome as the moon,
wretched as the night.
Her hips swaying on our bedroom floor.
Mouth like the sun in which I was warmed
(was scorched)
We traded pleasure in interrupted waves,
(hyperaware and choosing to ignore that something was awry and
that day we sat silent eating messy tacos they tasted like a failing marriage).
Her mouth formed a silent O.

I had a boy
for whom I spent all of my time attempting to pacify.
His eyes sung his pain from a rooftop
Oh, but when he was pleased they lit up like a September sky.
He worried, the poor boy. Worry stole teeth from his smile and
plagued him with desperation at 3am,
3am he called panting and frantic, asking
how many more days I will be breathing.
I tried to keep him here,
tie him to promises of safety.

In the morning my hands cut burning threads, unclenched.
I watched as roots mounted birds’ backs,
anchors grew iron wings and took flight.

I did not try to stop the lost, or tie them down.
Simple as release, recognition of time’s control.
I did not try to stop the ones I have lost, or catch the tail end of a feather-
I’ve kept myself busy
sobbing over imagined corpses.