2 a.m.

You don’t know how
to slip past the leaky sink
or moldy ceiling tiles,
embrace mattress clouds like doom
doesn’t exist.

The shoe bound to drop balances
on your nose—smothers you in constant
consciousness with its sultry,
sweet kiss.

Pain. So quiet are daylight fears
they ricochet wild in devilish hours,
your bed-head anxiety the only place
you really feel like yourself,
a whirlybird

On its way down from a maple spun dizzy
with little hope it’ll land on target, shell
half open, exploded, picked and pried apart
then dark.

Alexis Needham is a poet and emerging writer from Buffalo, NY and surrounding farmlands.