Night Sounds

I'm awake at 4am

to the radiator's song—

the clanging, the banging, the wrong

rhythm of something breaking or broken.

It fills the room like a presence,

like someone's here with me,

arguing. Insisting.

I listen for patterns, for logic,

the way you listen to an argument

looking for the moment to interrupt,

the place where it might make sense.

But there is no sense.

There's only the heat that comes,

then the cold that follows,

then the noise again—

bang, bang, bang—

like it's trying to tell me something

I refuse to understand.

Two years I've lived here.

Two years of 4ams.

I know my landlord's number.

I've dialed it maybe fifteen times

and hung up

because what if he thinks I'm complaining?

What if he thinks I'm the type

who makes trouble?

What if I'm not worth fixing?

The radiator doesn't care.

It clangs anyway.

It fills the dark with its voice

and I lie there

pretending I can fall back asleep,

pretending this is normal,

pretending that some things

aren't meant to be reported,

aren't meant to be fixed,

are just meant to be endured

until you stop hearing them,

until they become the sound

of where you live.