Poetry: Four a.m.

Oh, hello, darling,

Four a.m.,

I was just dreaming of you

Thanks for the interruption

 

What should we think about?

(in the glow of the digital clock,

Counting off the traitorous minutes creeping past)

Maybe mistakes from years ago?

Just flashes left but they still hurt—

Of course you know that

That’s what you woke me up to tell me

 

Or maybe that blunder from

The other side of midnight

Still fresh—

Want to salt the wound?

The shaker is in the other room

But I still have some from

Last night, if you want

 

We could worry about tomorrow!

(Creeping closer in that backstabbing glow)

Mistakes on the horizon

Tests and failures

Conversations and humiliations

Fuel for tomorrow night’s…conversation

 

Or maybe you could invite our old drinking buddy

Imagination

To the party

I hear he has some suggestions

About tomorrow

Things could go so right

Or so wrong

 

Let’s think about what he has to say

Until it feels real

So that the illusion is perfectly blown glass

When reality shatters it in my chest

Tomorrow

Well, today—I guess tomorrow is technically today.