all the hours spent in sleep at the wrong points: the mid-afternoons, the work-to-dos, the missed appointments and neglected friends. all the hours I should have spent sleeping that I spent instead in lamentation of nothing.

at some dark appointed hour the iron gate of my chest swings wide – the sensation is physical. from the center of my chest up through my teeth and pulled taut up into my brow across the eyes. the thing that in my head I keep calling “the keening” but it lacks that clarity of cause.

this little girl should put herself to bed, but has always been the type to prefer staying up all night, picking at her thoughts.

forcing her nodding head back up again and again to know just exactly how lonesome she can find the night. 

hold me, hold me. without fingers at the back of my neck my thoughts will roll away.