Two pairs of eyes open in the dark.
One from a pillow bracketed by breaths turned ragged.
The other hued like coals in fire
Staring from the ceiling, never
Speaking, simply waiting for the other’s screaming
To begin. Or perhaps to beg for Sleep’s kiss.

Dreams, though often stem from a soft goodnight kiss,
Shift into something other when left to the dark.
A heart in the chest screaming
Against a ribcage now ragged
With exhaustion. Yet still, sleep never
Falls in to douse the maladaptive fire.

Imagination always flickers to life next to fire;
Camp circle games that end with a kiss,
Because living in youth is never
Dull and there’s so much potential in the dark.
Social etiquette fallen ragged
With gossip turned high-pitched screaming,

And midnight ghost stories that leave you screaming
Into the logs of that hastily made fire.
The brain stripped ragged
Watching cinders and air kiss
In the tree line, hoping that the dark
Will hide from the sanguine glow. But it’s never

Something that hides. Shadows have never
Tried to shy away from noise or screaming.
It sits in plain sight: in the gaps in the dark,
In the breaks of the crackling fire,
In the gasps between each kiss,
Patchworked in the threads of ragged

Clothing, penned into forlorn fantasies ran ragged
And overencouraged by pitchy silence that never
Escape those journalled letters sealed with a kiss.
Emotions burn behind eyes screaming,
Tyring to simmer the anxious gut fire
As you still lay there facing upwards in the dark.

The dark limbs of paralysis stretching ragged across the room
Never quite touching or disturbing that internal screaming
Until, finally, it is broken by the fire of daylight kissing the horizon.