Some days, espresso is all I need
to pour into the vessel that once held
the part of me that treasured
new novels, relished in ink pens,
fresh sheets of paper, new words,
fell into a cozy stupor watching
the way Rhett kissed Scarlett—
often, the way she should be.
White mocha seeps into my being
on these days and I feel I can keep
placing both feet on cobblestones
of memory, reminding myself
of who I was before 14 years passed.

Some days, no amount of caffeine will do,
only the cavern of my down comforter,
the blanketing blackness of a room
curtained in clandestine mystery,
lavender and eucalyptus steam billowing
while I’m digging deeper in a fortress
of pillows, covered up and dreaming down—
pushing thoughts beneath the rug,
sweeping the cobwebs into a pile
of broken stone memory fragments
that I can no longer piece together.

Some days, I do my best to sort through
the shattered pieces of who I used to be.
One spidery strand I manage to read
in a voice that does not belong to me:
You can sleep when you’re dead.
No, no—that can’t be the one
I keep searching for; it can’t be
the elusive piece.  My mind rearranges
the stones, picks through them,
finds it properly, reads it to myself
in a whisper that does belong to me:
You can sleep when you’re dead inside.