Sent, 2019

3:12 on the clock.

The ceiling.

A truck going slow down the street

and then gone.

Nine days of this.

Not every night bad —

just the 4am wake-up,

the brain starting its inventory

without asking.

Last night I opened my sent folder.

Emails from 2019.

People I don't talk to anymore,

the timestamps a record

of other nights I couldn't sleep:

11:47pm,

12:03am,

whole threads I'd forgotten about.

One had the subject line: quick question.

It was four paragraphs long.

The quick question resolved itself

by the following March.

I read all four paragraphs.

I read three more after that.

The person I sent them to

I haven't spoken to in three years.

I held the phone at an angle

so the brightness wouldn't hit my eyes.

At 4:18 I put it face down.

The room was starting to go gray.

I lay there and watched it happen —

the ceiling coming back.