3 AM Blue

The quiet hums like power lines.

Three A.M. on the digital clock, red lines

on the dresser's dark. A sliver of light

from under the bathroom door, a pale, weak might.

I count the dust motes, caught in the streetlamp's stream,

they float like tiny lies inside a dream.

My neighbor's dog whines, just once, then stops.

The silence returns, like water, drop by drops.

Every mistake I've made, a tiny crack

against the ceiling, I can't turn my back

on any of it. My brain, a cheap old reel,

plays the same film, the things I ought to feel.

And I just lie here, rigid, in the bed,

until the first gray light breaks in my head.

Another night, unspent, just used and gone.

Another day to drag myself along.