dawn, and everything's just a little too slow, a little too loud, a little too bright. you rub your hand across your eyes, yawn, and for an instant, the whole world is frozen, static and strange, caught in the tenuous, unsure instant between breaths. possibilities lost in the cracks between this second and the next.

it's hard, she says and her eyelashes cast long shadows so you can't see her eyes. you shrug, rest an arm around her shoulder. you, she begins, and then she falls silent. gives up. there are lights out the window, and voices, all through the night, and you're quiet and warm, and it's not okay.

a/n: this crowded underbelly of my secrets, definitive and biased, it's how i'm used to things.