Awake

There is something so profoundly sad in those hours after the night ends and before morning arrives. All the lonely people searching for togetherness in the rips and frays of empty sheets and the way the redness of the alarm clock penetrating the pitch black resembles your eyes burned from crying because you danced too close to the heat. There's a light coming from the kitchen and maybe it finds its way into your bed. And no one's awake except for the anonymous cars that send the sound of ignition through your window panes. And you think of calling but you know that they're already sleeping. So you tell yourself that soon it will be morning but everything is harder to rationalize when ghosts fill your bones and there's no one there to reach out to in the darkness. So you curl around the emptiness and tell yourself again that you'll be okay. But you're starting not to believe yourself anymore. Your back aches and your lungs ache and the world is sleeping without you. There's a profound sadness in those hours as three turns to four and you're still lonely. And you're always awake.