You awake at 4:30.

An aching darkness like a sucking gut wound.

You know little but you know,

Every letter is a firm rejection.
Every phone call is a dead line.
Every friend is an intruder.
Every lover is a stranger.

You can’t read.
You can’t write.
You can’t fuck.
You can’t love.

You glare at the small pills
like pebbles from a childhood
river in your palsied hand and
let them fall down the drain.

You’re drained.

You write off the day and
go back to try and sleep in a bed
that feels like a stranger and
maybe it is.

Photo by Dmitry Bayer on Unsplash