Hear me. Read me. Notice me. Indulge me. Sleep with me. Cuddle me. Feed me. Hold me. Set me free.
I am that barren black rubber tire that rolls down your street. Unattached to any vehicle. You ask yourself, “where did it come from? Why is it here? Is it full of bugs? Should we throw it away? Does it belong to anybody?”
I’m a cigarette in your ashtray, tinged with a colour of lipstick you’ve never seen before. How did it get there? Whose lips are those traces of?
“All the lonely people; where do they all come from?”
I’m a cough in an empty train, a sigh you hear in your room when you’re all alone. I’m the creek of the closet door when it swings open on its own weight. I’m a compulsion of gravity and shadows; the way fingerprints carve passageways through deep pools of dust.
I’m a yawningly hungry sensation you feel first thing in the morning, when the sunlight is slipping under your eyelids, turning your dreams into heavy sweat-soaked blankets and a pillow that’s been twisted into knots.
And I’m still here, waiting for you to find me, to write me back, to lift me up onto your shoulders and carry me on and off into tomorrow and whatever comes next.
