It’s three a.m. and your eyes are open.
You’re awake before sunrise
with a stack of papers fluttering in one hand
and a roll of duct tape clenched in the other.
You put a page of your writing on the wall
and rip off a piece of tape
to stick it to the building.
The January air cuts through your denim jacket
and leaves your fingers so numb that
after a while you can’t feel
how raw the adhesive has left your skin.
You keep to the rhythm
walk post tape
walk post tape
until you run out of paper.
You stumble to class with an empty stomach
and a head full of dismembered corpses
writhing in pools of their own blood
with every tongueless mouth screaming your name
because you couldn’t save them.
By the time the sun rises behind the clouds
you’re buried in a concrete casket
stroking the canvas with your brush
and painting your face with shades of grey
that reflect the smouldering ruins around you.
The bell rings and you walk away from your painting
to set up on stage for the rally
even though the people passing by aren’t listening.
Did they see the flyers?
Or did these wrinkled sheets of paper
pass right through their bleary eyes
like echoes dying in a graveyard?
A few of the wanderers linger
so you cradle the microphone in your hands
and sing the music with your whole body
throwing yourself against the walls with every word
until your song is black and blue
but no matter how much your voice trembles in your chest
or thunders across your lips
it never seems to break the silence.
The clouds follow the sun out of the sky
and you take the stairs to the seventeenth floor roof
so you can look up at another starry night.
You sit on the edge and sigh.
You could fly if you wanted to.
If you let go, your body would fall away
and kiss the earth one last time.
But who would clean up the mess?
You shake your head and walk back inside.
It’s three in the morning.
Your eyes are open
and you can’t help asking yourself why.
The room is dark
and your eyes are swollen like two open sores
so you lay your head down on a pillow
even though you know you can’t sleep.
Not yet anyway.
The TV bathes your face
in the light of another MASH rerun.
The glow of wounded bodies
rolls down your cheeks
in a stream of tears.
The falling water washes your face
and tastes like salt on your lips
but Hawkeye’s dry humor
soaks up the falling droplets.
Your muscles relax with a sigh
like a fist unclenching
and one day flows into the next
with a sleeping smile.
You’ll wake up early again today.