Totally forgot to schedule this. Your birthday week does weird stuff to your memory. In any case, here’s the weekly poem!

It’s the kind of 4 am

that makes your sweat glands ooze at every twitch,

the kind of morning

that tangles around you like a sheet of spider’s web.

It’s when every notion is molasses in slow motion

and every piece you hear grasps at you like one hundred wandering ghosts.

I need you

to wash me as you would your sheets:

in cool, fragrant water

and soft, firm hands.

I need you

to leave me in the cold: 

on harsh and hopeless cliffs,

spread out and breathing.

On a 4 am like this,

when other people press into

around

against

me,

I need ripples and air,

plunges and flight,

profound

3-hour lonelinesses.