While sleepless I cry.
Lament my circumstances and rise.
Perform my chores and duties and go to bed, sleepless.
I cry. I kneel upon the bathroom floor and draw a bath. Curse the light bulbs.
Draw a huge breath. I cry. Wander the nightly halls. Race from echoes.
I cradle a doubtful man. I cry. Cradle letters and old photographs.
Pull sleep off of the kitchen floor. Eat little. Shower often.
I cry. Salute a friend who departs across the Atlantic. Angry dreams.
Wipe the ash from British Columbia off my windowsills. Cry.
Chase bugs from my cheeks and reel under the arid days.
Remember my dead lovers and the white walls of wards.
I cry. Hide my body in clothing. Implore the ink from my pen not to go.
It goes. I cry. I comfort a man on his knees leaned against a cold oven.
Catch his wails. He talks of Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill.
The calendar turns. It doesn’t turn. I don’t know life.
I sleep a thousand hours. The ghosts, linger.
I shove them off. My scars shine. My skin slick from grief.
Hang my soul up on the line and have the air and sun dry it.
Sit on the steps outside in the dark.
Out of tears. It’s time to close the door.
Once closed, I give it, my sighs.
No cries.
It rains.