It's past three in the morning.

We're breathing like crickets,
like sighs and heart-tight cliches.

It's like an instruction manual
scribbled on the violin case where it tells me
I have to open mouth here
while you open ears there.

So I punch some clock
and we make small talk.

You are people poison.

You told me that yourself—
more so than ever, and more often than not:
you serve as both poison and poor antidote.

Maybe you're playing doctor to my patient
and you don't want to cure me yet.

Your eyes are those that say hello.
Then follows long looks, then follows truth,
then they tell me they're here to kidnap
some cinder black-burnt brute.

I think that's how all of us look like when
we're crumpled and folded into night.

You search my body like I was a map
with an X sign on my belly— except I wasn't,
and I didn't digest treasures under skin
like a refuge.

I'm not comfort for withered voices,
and you're not that radioactive room
anymore.