Last Night
Last night I had an impending sense of doom.
So I gave Evan all my passwords,
kissed the baby a few extra times,
and fell asleep praying for the world.
When I woke up, I was still alive.
Which means that, somewhere,
someone else is waking up to
unimaginable grief. Is it you?
The kind that sinks past the
ache in your rib cage into the
hollow of your stomach and
thuds to the floor of your body
like dead weight, a bursting bag
of apples or rocks or bookends,
reverberating loneliness back
up into your throat. It catches
like a rattling cough. Only it is
invisible and silent, and no one
else knows about it, except me.
I know. Because last night my body
whispered tales of endings, trials
and legacies, letting me know all
about your secret sorrow. Letting
me take the weight onto myself
for a brief moment, so that you
could finally sleep.
Cover image by Annie Spratt.