Chemical Instability

[7] five a.m. bedroom

I can't find the will to close my eyes

or the strength to stop thinking

I need help

because my hands are running across a keyboard

and I've told this keyboard

the words that dance through my head

in the ante meridians.

I'll never be good enough because I'm telling you this

I wish I was worse than I am

because then I would have the right to complain;

I've told this keyboard far too much

about tea-cravings and needing saving

and the bitter pills I swallow,

about the noose of her auburn hair that weighs me down

and her cigarette smoke in the air

about the old voicemails I play at five a.m.

when the world is on the brink of dawn

but I haven't shut my eyes.

I've told this keyboard about my armor of glass

that cracks each time I hear her voice

and the way the thought of her sews my lips shut,

about the way I just can't get enough

and the joy I find in being destroyed.

I've told it of the sway of her hips

and the curve of her lips

and the way the light leaves her eyes as I walk away

and I wonder if

I need help

because I've told this keyboard everything

at five a.m. 

and I'm awake

and I'm just praying that I'm not a mistake

and that the hearts that I break

will never include my own,

even if that means I'll never know

her lips curling around my name

like a confession of her sins

or her fingers laced with mine at the bottom of the stairs

her teeth on my neck

in that blind spot between love and lust

and through the fingertips

that have run through her hair

and clung to her waist,

I tell my keyboard

everything,

all that I want to whisper in her ear

as she lies next to me,

half asleep,

in the ante meridians.