The 2 AM Version of the Kitchen

The refrigerator light

is too bright

at 2 AM.

The hum is too loud.

The air is too cold.

The milk carton looks like

something from a museum—

a still life

about loneliness.

Half-empty containers

arranged like evidence.

Like the remains

of meals I forgot

I was supposed to finish.

I'm not hungry.

I never came here hungry.

I came here

because sleep

is no longer a place

I can go.

So the kitchen becomes

the place between.

The place where nothing

makes sense

at this hour.

The bright light

makes the food look staged.

Makes the kitchen look

like a room

I'm visiting

for the first time.

The hum keeps humming.

The cold keeps cold.

And I stand there

in my own house

like a stranger

trying to remember

what people do

when they can't sleep.

What they look for

in the half-empty containers.

What they're really hungry for

when they're hungry for nothing

at all.