Empty at 2 a.m.

Joie Bauman​

There are flies stuck
behind my window screens

The tick tick ticking of the

hallway clock is deafening

It is 2 a.m. and I am still awake

I brew another coffee and

slink back through the shadow house,

melting beneath the rumble

of the late-night trains 

I tell myself I do not need the rest

My mind floats back to the highway where

I’m standing below the overpass

Cars rush beneath the bridges

on their midnight trips to somewhere

I am a step away from vanishing in their headlights

The heater hums in time with the ghosts

who are lurking in the corners

I know that they are much too shy

to slip beneath my bed sheets

It is lonely here at 2 a.m.

The walls are curling in on themselves,

collapsing under their weight

But I am laying with the flies

in the windowsill

I am just as trapped as they are

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