I have become close friends with midnight,
often holding hands with the clock as it strikes twelve,
wondering if I can push back the time far enough
so that dawn might never arrive.

for Jamie (she/her)

you are diagnosed with lost, doppelgänger’s wanderlust
curate an identity in language and code, polylingual coupons
out of the sinking sandbed you call home but look at you:
camera in hand, eyes shuttering, the truth wrapped in
plasticised tears. this is dislocation as you know it, normalcy
bleeding your heart’s chrysalis, a butterfly broken mid-escape​

i wish i could tell you about the myriad of clippings from my mind’s daily paper,
​
but i’m scared that upon peeling back one too many layers of my cocoon,
you’ll encounter the butterflies blundering blindly in my ribcage
and the words that have dissipated halfway up my windpipe. ensconced
in a darkness as suffocating as it is empty, i am alone like i always have been.

i.
the smell of cinnamon sifted throughout the corners of the house,
filling the air with sweet desire and the guilty pleasure of gluttony.
i was young; foolish and naive, though i make no claim or promise that i am no longer both.
a child until i was old enough to cross the street
to tell the neighbors to leave my brother alone.
i used to coat my toast in cinnamon like the salty taste of a lost childhood coated on my mind.
i don't like cinnamon anymore.

​Ten minutes on the balcony was always too short.
Our colorful heads leaned against each other,
mere naive creatures
with poetry on our unwashed hands.
Back inside, chairs were unbearable barriers
so we pressed the metal legs together
and whispered until
we were the troublesome ones.