the things we do against all we can't

It's 5:00 AM, I'm on my bike beneath a teenage moon that's still wide awake from a night of heavy partying. His eyes blink drunkenly as I follow the beam of my narrow headlight. If he wasn't so hung over, he'd be doing a better job, or at least give way to day. But the sun will hurt his eyes, and he's in no hurry whatsoever to fall behind the world.

I pedal to the coffee shop with my goosebumps on full alert to the temperature of night. I stand at the counter, rub my eyes. "Decaf." She looks at me askance and I shrug. I take the long way home...stopping to window shop and sip the cinnamon off the surface of my Java. When I get back to the house I tuck myself away in the backyard...book of poetry, a flashlight, my warm mug. The moon yawns and slips just a bit...just enough that the world becomes silhouette, and I nothing but another black mark against the skyline.
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