When I think of that old town
One night sticks out, foggy and dull
like the overcast sky
on a hill, on a night with no sleep
and no stars, I watch
the spread of the city and its twinkling lights, and
place myself at a distance from
every
single
one
and everyone
at once
I finish my bottle of wine; I lean heavy
against the splintered fence
Each inhale thick and full, and distant
Cradled by dark trees and
contemplating space
In muffled consciousness,
I glide
from one memory to another—
A night just like this, on a cold beach
In that old, sleepy town with no stars
someone speaks into the wind
and the waves
because I am not listening, I’m not sorry, I am
contemplating spaces again, and how my mind
circles and circles around itself
on nights like this; where the air is thick
and full of secrets, and pain,
and pieces of yourself that you shed like skin
Nights that cradle you so you must expand
to fill imaginary spaces, the
empty crevices between breezes
On nights like this, where I am confronted
by my own shallow perplexities and smallness,
where I am desperate, simply,
to feel