The poet hours.

It’s 1 am.

I’m calculating how many hours I have left until the alarm rings. 300 minutes. 18000 seconds. Chewing random thoughts savagely till they lose their taste. Yes, mother, it is okay for you to stay over a few weeks. I should have never said that. Now I am contemplating how to get away with murder. I imagine how to work it out in conversation. Mum? She went quietly...didn’t notice the sleeping pills in her herbal tea...she was not too heavy to carry downstairs, you know...I found her a quiet spot in the garden under the roses she admired so much.

2 am. Staring at the cracks time. Fuck that. If I can’t sleep, I might as well get up. Make tea. Smoke fags. Not write. Look at the washing up piled up in the sink. Look at a blank page. Make tea. Smoke fags. Not write. Hide the bills that I can’t pay. Read conspiracy theories. Make tea. Smoke. Not write. I stand at my back door, stare at the wind instead.

3 am. Back to bed. 180 minutes and 9000 seconds left.

4 am. I’m ironing my thoughts into neat shapes...fold them like origami swans...9 legs are better than 8 to walk on black ice...when the morning comes, I will have mastered the spider glide...maybe.

And it’s 5 am. I give in to daydreams about Him. The guy I don’t want to think about. Because he picked my pockets clean with his sun-filled hugs, his wide brim of a grin and the tender quiet in the black of his eyes. It’s the feeling of feelings. I remember our last hug...touching the closeness between us, choosing to watch him leave, the taste of the never again. I cried when he could not see me.