Birds

It's the chirp of the birds that set it off. The night has slipped away. Slowly, quietly, almost accidentally. I once counted the blinks it took for the sun to rise. I forget the tally now. It didn't seem important enough to remember, or at least that's what I tell myself now when I try to count them again. Too many graves have been filled with exhausted breaths since then. The death toll is in the millions now, each gruff exhale a soldier lost in my battle for rest. I build their coffins in my head and write eulogies for them to calm my frustration. 'Here lies a man who was killed by caffeine.' - I carve the pathetic truth into the back of my lids every night, as the beat of my rampant heart pounds in my ears. The angry footsteps of a relentless insomnia. But the birds. The birds still sing to me come morning.

They are as predictable and naive as my bed time routine. Their melancholy chirp is the adrenalin needed to arouse my nostalgia. They remind me of the slow creep of the sun over a tranquil beach, of the rush of wind past my ears as I ride through empty streets, of the accomplished solitude soaking the hour no one else knows. And all too easily they remind me of your voice. The rasp of it, as you began to share my vices. You never occur to me without the sun rise. I think I prefer to leave you in the light, things are clearer there. The day does not rage in my head, it does not mutate my thoughts and stab them repetitively through a wavering logic. With you restrained by the shackles of dawn my hatred of each witching hour leaves you alone. I can smile fondly at the birds and refuse to admit that you help the dim to crush me, that you are one of the knives it uses to impale me.

When we shared this sickness you were my bandage, I wrapped you around my gaping wounds and my delusion soothed the septic cuts. But you were just a band-aid; I was a desecrated leper who'd lost all his limbs. When you left the shock of your departure displaced that of my anguish. You saved yourself, which I could never blame you for. I was quickly decomposing, the air between our sighs was becoming heavy and toxic. As pure as you were you couldn't rescue me. I had begun to infect you, the skin across your perfect body was beginning to mold. I commend you for not fleeing sooner. With each subsequent night I endured alone the shock wore off, and so the blood seeped faster from my trauma. I was a fool. All that time you kept me together and I never even noticed. My punishment now is the memory of you, the shadows of you that mock me in this silent darkness. But I still have the birds. I'll always have the birds. Even if they'll never sound as beautiful now that I don't have you.