One minute more. Socks and shirts still in a pile on the floor. The real world little more than blurred colors and muffled sounds. The debris that gets left behind. I know the answers. I just never bother to write them down.

Tiny words looking for the sun. I flip the switch, but the darkness remains. Watching everything easy become hard again. The stairs creak, but no one’s there. Like shadows in the corners. The glimmer of hope fading with every step. Noticing too late that they go nowhere.

I sell myself, one tiny word at a time. Doling out feelings in small handfuls of poetry. The abyss of loneliness that nothing can ever quell. Watching the waves caress the shore, like a novel searching for its ending. Words that can never be taken back, though they've never been said.