to sleep or whoever takes me to them

Emma Keas

i meet you so often yet never remember your face. / i can only dream of your hand cupping mine, / your palm molded to my cheek, / or the way your breath must cloud when the heater’s off. / sometimes, / i wonder if we’ve ever met at all.

​

so when the shadows have begun their sprawl, / when they’ve flattened themselves into straight angles on rooftops, / when ill bars of light within have grown gaunt and frail, and / their death-sighs then hit my wall, roadkill hymns at best, / is this when you come?

when midnight metronomy of last has long been lost, / when my right ear swells of crunchings in my pillowcase, / when silence starts to pool in the spaces amid plaster, meanwhile / a crack in the night sky’s perfume breaks bread / with a staleness of evenings past, / is this when you come?

when listening to clouds drift has deafened me, / when all breath measurements remain miscounted, confounded, / when someone’s far sneeze stifles a fly / on my lip-corner, / and there’s that untwining—that unrobing of my ribcage to unveil stilled lungs, / when tear ducts sing in the wake of self-symphonies, / is this when you come? 

when the face in the wall holds its writhing and takes to staring at me instead, / when table-corners soften around the edges of dark, / when my joints are numb to pain, / when I’m plummeting but not, though my sheets catch me anyway, / is this when you come?

or perhaps you come when my eyes least expect it, / when they’ve curled into themselves, / when they blink.

perhaps you arrive sandwiched between forgettings.