it’s one in the morning
or more
and it’s raining glitter
that you can see but can’t touch.

I have told you some of my worse stories.
I have stolen your time again.
there’s a hole in me somewhere
I am trying to fill with crumpled papers
and endless coffee
and the sound of you laughing.
maybe some day
I’ll find something that will really clot the wound.
until then

I try hard not to think about the news
and I am so lucky that for me
it is news
and not my reality.
when you run late I worry
you must have been in an accident.
I measure the grief before I’m even sure it’s real.

they are asking me to pour in
my blood and sweat
and lucky for them
I like to bleed and
like to sweat
but my vision is staring to swim.
I think I was a machine once,
but now I know better.
the mountains can be shaken
and the ground can fall in on itself
and I can become the ash I came from.

it gets too quiet
and I wonder how many nights
I’d have to be missing
for someone to worry.
that’s the cost of the freedom I think.
that’s the cost of the way I’ve been living,
untethered and sharp and uncanny.

one of my lungs gives a little death rattle
if I breathe too deep,
but I can keep it shallow for now.
I’m coughing up clots of self
and spitting them into the drain.

I swear
I saw you see me new tonight.
looking at me like I was on fire.
I was once, we were all something once
that were not really anymore.
but get me drunk and you’ll see it
or ask me about those years
and I won’t be able to help myself.
what’s the use in hiding,
I devour the truth
and feast on how
you look at me different after.