Half of things are stolen.
The other half is sleep.
Which is a hard thing to have.
Sleep is a thing that escapes me.
When I have it, I don't have it.
When I want to read, I can't read.
I find books at night in places.
The dark of my room is an ocean
to me, just that and no more
and I find myself cold in the middle.
I find myself a way of being that doesn't feel
like a burning rag on my face.
I find myself someone to love who loves me.
Which is the same as finding a burglar
in the middle of my dark home
taking things that used to bring me joy
leaving things that offer something else.
None of it is what I want but I need
to have it.
It is the same as finding a circle I made
on a map of the world.
No one remembers the marks they make.
And no one takes
the right things from me anymore.
There are things I want gone, but the air
is full of them, the night is gone.
The day starts and I have lost it all.
Except the shrug of sex which is good
but not as good as what I want
and not as good
as how it flies out of me without being seen
and how the smell stays with me
and how he loves
to describe it to me afterwards.