kneejerk

These days I fall asleep slowly, wake up too fast, fold insomnia round me in a stiff approximation of selves I'd thought I'd lost. We stare at art 'til we're dizzy. I'm susceptible to patterns, to shifting lines. He said he liked the style with which I hightailed it from the room, out into the windy night.

The other day we danced to stay warm, pedaled out a sweeping arc through our cold, wet city, til our lungs burned like my wind-soaked cheeks.

It doesn't matter, because people fall in and out all the time. I could just pretend, for the sake of some solid, dreamless sleep. For the sake of the skin on my neck.

Snores are shaking the floorboards. There's a funny stale taste on my tongue, like cigarettes, or forgettery. The air by the doorway smells of sweet fermentation, around our cluster of colorful jars.

I'm grasping at the same threads that bind my hands behind my back.