For The Ones Who Never Feel Alive Unless It’s 4 O’Clock At Night

I surround everything, yet I have nothing. Am nothing. Spread too thin. Suffocating in liquid smoke.

By

woman holding moon lamp
Photo by Drew Tilk on Unsplash

Witching hour gone to pass. Air turned raw and slicing. I surround everything.

Moon sweeping in dew as it would the tide, a blanket of water and numbness. I surround everything.

Stealing warmth to double down in shivers. I take glee in the terrors that latch onto the mind. Whispering nightmares like poetry to the subconscious. Vague memories, once sharp, now glazed and gray. I surround everything, yet I have nothing. Am nothing. Spread too thin. Suffocating in liquid smoke.

I have nothing, and yet the melody that chills the air sings a song of life if the frequency is right. Notes fluttering by too fast to grab. Spluttering out when the weight on the shoulders of the sleeping gets too heavy. Those that manage to move the drowsiness that sits eternally, fog coating their insides. Those that manage to push the boulder up the hill of sand. They do more than ignore the siren song I sing; they are the ones to find the radio. Change my tune. Turn my choking hand that crushes lungs into icy drums that fill the veins.

They drive in their cars, bass pumping louder than their hearts ever do when they’re apart from me. Occasional blurs of white pass by. Camaraderie found in ignoring my hazard signs. Pulse climbing like the numbers on the speedometer. Death a friend in a far off land they’ll never visit. A notion that belongs to others.

I provide comfort to those that seek it. A hum of electric tension they follow blindly. Static crackling the air with possibilities. For the ones who find blandness in the day. The bags under their eyes filled with the weight of the stars that I light with matches. For the ones who never feel alive unless it’s four o’clock at night.