9.8 Meters Per Second

It’s 3 AM and the air feels like wool,

thick with the noise of the fridge humming low.

I let the glass slip, a slow-motion pull,

and wait for the shatter, the physical blow.

The water doesn't splash, it just settles in,

creeping through cracks in the floor’s yellowed skin,

holding the shards in a surface-tension grip,

a jagged map of a careless slip.

Everything wants to be lower tonight,

the ceiling, the clock, the dim kitchen light.

I’m leaning my head on the cool oven door

because I can’t find a way to get closer

to the floor.