I was behind you. Laying sorely in the back passenger seat between final reviews and discarded pants and you were upset.

I tore at your shoulders, tense, and cold, as soothingly as I could manage because the whole world was tired. It had no stars to keep it company, no clouds to lie down with, or moon to call its own tonight.

We all wanted sleep. But your toenails punched the engine to defy time and distance, rolling over shadows of sleepy things and break light reveries like they were men that had hurt you. You pushed and pushed and pushed, like if you could push just one more inch you might break out of here, but wind crawled toward beds of dirt and sheets of grass and demanded more rest than we had ever bargained for; and you leant nothing to it. You had to get home and eat and scream and stay awake with all your ghosts to hit you. Hard.

So I let my hands slither around your chest, fighting hard, and red flashes ricocheted off your still, pressed lips, and there was so much light, but everything was so f----d up, what are we expected to make of this? I don't want to say we're kids, but there is not a corner in this city that doesn't reek of old flesh and rotten daydreams or isn't blanketed in that cozy ravenous blackness that we agreed we hate so much.

Can't sleep. Monsters sweeping the town of parade candy and summer sweat. Branches of native trees tangle like locks of hair after nights we can't remember and I think I'm afraid of the dark.