the shadow of my friend, the moon
spills her solemn light
through the fissure of my blinds
at half past 4
and drowns me in it
she doesn't bother saying goodnight
because she knows my eyes,
red-rimmed like an eclipse,
never close in her company
but only because they can't
instead
she greets me with a kiss
on the crown of my cowering head
drooping, overwatered like a flower,
in a hug between my knees
and then tells me with unearthly lips
she's hollowed out to the brim, too
drained and used and empty
(like the glass tombstones of your
damnably luring puckered bottles
bent dreamily like vases,
with curves that seep with the poison
that turned you into
a user
a forgetter
an emptier of loveless daughters with sinking lungs drenched in moonlight, tipping dry glasses for last drops you swallowed yesterday
have you found it yet?
whatever it is you're looking for
at the bottom of that bottle
that you didn't find in me?)
my heart has been quieter lately
her somber, stuttering beats now only an echo
of the last good feeling she's ever felt
i've already forgotten the sound of her laughter
and the shape of her joy
i'm worried about her
i think that she's lonely
the shadow of my friend, the moon
sits on my ceiling like a star
her glow resting a pond in my palm
for me to swim in, dive in, get lost in—
i ask her if i'll ever be enough
or if i'll end up a ghost
pretending to be a girl
gazing up from bottom of a bottle
fingers crossed, yelling
'i'm here! i'm right here!'
hoping to finally be the thing someone searches for
she looks down at me
her smile hovering an inch above my head
and suddenly i feel young and small all over again
like i walked into an amusement park
shorter than all the signs
i'm supposed to reach
but i can't
will i ever?
i find my answer in her eyes
hours have passed
it's morning now
and the sun is spilling across my sheets on some random wednesday in april
pressing my shadow flat against a wall
nailing her there by her wrists
because the days don't end
just because i want them to
and god, on days like these
how badly i want them to
because rotting in my chest
lies a barely-beating, barely-there
something-i-don't-recognize-anymore
carving tally marks
onto my jail cell of a rib cage
at the end of every day
and i ache for the absence of it
i think that i'm lonely
and it's pulling at my strings
with bloodied fingers
and flossing them through tomorrow's
(that taste of every yesterday i can remember)
to greet a sky with a sun i've seen
(but never met)
both a thousand times and none at all
and although i know it
i do
as you sully your liver thrice
bewitched by the bottle
with hopes to drown in your revered vices,
i can't help but imagine how long i will remain locked up on that long list of yours that reminds your mind to forget me, your loveless daughter
and for a second
maybe two
i'll wonder if my today's will start now
if i'll do more than gaze beyond the slits of it from my window
if i'll be more than it's prisoner
because even i sometimes forget
that i've left myself shackled in my bed
