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

​

​

​

Joie Bauman is a young, emerging writer and photographer from Central Jersey. When she is not creating, you can find Joie coaching track and field or gymnastics, weightlifting, or napping with her four dogs. Her work has been published in Serendipity Literary Magazine, The Esthetic Apostle, and the Same.

Issue III