Still here. Black and bleak and locked in my house but here. Not fraying anymore. So tired my eyes feel like hot black coals. I’ve slept all night and half the day. Dreamtossed. I start dreaming the moment I close my eyes. I’m sailing out on the tides, and it’s stopped hurting for now. No screaming fire pain, no anxiety making my heart run like a rabbit. Just my breath, moving in my mouth. Numb air cool against my tongue. There’s the sweetness of poetry, running like juice down my chin. I could not come to the night, so the night came to me. My hair smells of frankincense and my skin of memories.

My wrists have stopped singing to me. It’s my inks and paints I can hear. I want a souvenir. (something I can hold in the palm of my hand) When the dawn strips me of everything. I want to remember.