stuttered

The undoing days. Tiny bites of candy. The airconditioned feel of tired in your eyelids and the 1:00 AM which haunts you. Like one sleepless night not letting go. A potential cold. The sniffle of annoyance and hope for brighter days to come. No time to cry, unless you find yourself awake again in the early morning. The snap of being seen and all the undercurrents of wish-I-hads which line your street like parked cars. The loose reverberation of too much slack. All the empty space between what you stand for and the wavering figure before you. Divides woven by social obligations. The stutter of weekend plans. A longing look out a distant window at what might be missing. In the neighbor's dog. A toddler playing in the grass. False memories; regrets for one more sentence. The words you'd been rehearsing. On post-it notes in the context of silly putty. Rubberized emotions carrying no more than their own self-assurance. The blistered smell of walking home alone, and an assertion that some song on your phone has all the answers. The noble poetry and broken mirror of meeting people. What foggy drawings lined your text book give more clues than a voicemail under warm breath. Looking back and away, as an escapist. The dawn which puts to rest everything unaccomplished on the shelf for next time. And the next time.