4 AM

I got home at four.

From somewhere I shouldn't have been.

From someone I shouldn't have been with.

I sat by the window.

The city was still dark.

The apartment was dark.

I was still dressed in yesterday.

And then the first bird.

Just one. A small sound.

Like something was starting.

Then another.

Then a whole chorus

like they'd all been waiting

for permission.

The sky started changing.

Not all at once.

Gradual, the way death must be.

Slow enough to miss,

fast enough that you look away

and it's already different.

I haven't slept.

Four hours ago I was someone else.

Now I'm someone else again.

The difference is this window.

This light.

This sound of birds

that don't know I'm here.

My apartment looks wrong

at this brightness.

The corners are too sharp.

The dust is visible.

The things I haven't cleaned

are suddenly obvious.

The space between furniture

suddenly reveals everything

I've been ignoring.

The birds don't care.

They're just doing their morning thing.

They don't know that I'm here

having destroyed something.

That I'm here unraveling.

That I'm here watching the light

come back to a world

that doesn't need me to have slept

to keep going.

This is what delirium is:

standing at a window,

watching birds,

watching light,

knowing that sleep will eventually win.

Knowing that my body

will eventually give up

and crash.

But not now.

Not while the sky

is this specific color.

Not while the birds

are this specific loud.

I can't look away.

The light gets brighter.

The birds get quieter.

The morning arrives

like it always does,

indifferent to whether I'm awake

or whether I'm broken.

And I'm still standing here.

Watching it happen.

Unable to move.

Unable to sleep.

Unable to do anything

but witness

the cruelty

of morning

after a night

I'll regret.