4:12 AM

The microwave clock is a bruise in the room,

casting a flat, digital sort of a gloom.

I’ve been counting the minutes since one, then since two,

waiting for something I didn't quite do.

A single sharp note hit the glass of the pane,

a rhythmic, metallic, and needle-thin strain.

It’s a bird in the cedar, beginning its day,

while I’m stuck in the parts that are rotting away.

I look at my tea and the gnat on the rim,

floating and tiny and grey and quite grim.

The sky is the color of a fresh-punched eye.

I’m too tired to live and too stubborn to die.