What Changes Overnight

I finished it at 2 AM,

the last page, the last line, the gem

of an ending that wouldn't let me sleep,

made me desperate for sleep to keep

it away, to carry it somewhere

my brain couldn't follow, somewhere fair

enough to forget what I'd read.

I woke up this morning, and instead

of forgetting, the first thing I did

was flip back to the page, and I rid

myself of the lie that I could

move on—the same words still stood

there, printed, permanent, true,

but they meant something new,

something I hadn't understood

when my brain was tired, when I could

barely think at 2 in the morning.

The text doesn't change. I'm mourning

something I can't name,

this strange emptiness, this blame

I place on myself for not seeing

the full weight of what the author was being,

what the ending meant, what I missed.

So I close the book

and I don't know what to do with the nook

of emptiness now,

the strange hollowness, and I vow

to never read it quite the same,

to hold it close like shame.