Black Coffee and Chewed Erasers

The transformation to the poet by full moon.

Reflective at eight fourteen p.m.
I'm kept company by the glow-in-the-dark stars
On my ceiling and a Pink Floyd record.
You didn’t call me today
And I really missed the sound of your voice
On the other end of the line,
Just like I have for the past eighteen days.

Shaking at eight forty seven,
I feel so sick, so full of this emptiness
That I can’t seem to fill.
Black coffee and chewed erasers,
Paper canvases screaming to be split open with poetry,
Fading memories between the pencil stains,
Smudges of lead and artistically drawn lines,
All to make me forget and save myself from any last resorts.

Frustrated at nine thirty two,
Banging my head against the wall,
Banging my fists against the mirror.
Watching it crumble beneath my fury,
The shattered pieces threaten to taint my wrists
Rather than putting themselves back together
So I can feel whole again.

Self-conscious at nine fifty eight,
I sit in a corner of my room,
Shaking my head at the person I’ve become:
Dazed, destructive, dependent on addictions that hurt.
I punch the lights out in hope that
I might just disappear, obliterate completely.
And I wonder if I ever made you truly smile.

Alone at ten o’ seven,
So much so, that I’m abandoned even by myself.
And I’m reminded how much I need you by my side
To make me feel like a butterfly.
Pretty, delicate, not afraid to take flight
And survive in a world of unbroken promises,
Best friends and true love,
Because everybody else is too jaded and broken
To believe such places exist.
Everybody except us, baby.

Hurting at ten twenty one,
Because time heals nothing but itself
And that’s all our memories are trapped in.
Months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds.
Condemned and confined in thick lined cells
That make up my calendar.
It’s been nine and a quarter days since I’ve seen you
and you haven’t written me one of those
I’m-thinking-about-you notes since the third day we met.

Blinking back tears at eleven o’ two,
Because in exactly an hour and forty eight minutes
It will be a brand new day,
One that shouldn’t be wasted thinking about you.
I will wake up after noon and lie listlessly on my bed,
Staring blankly at the ceiling for a few moments,
And strains of Pink Floyd will play in my ears.
The corners of my lips will turn up into a ghost of a smile
When I remember tonight and the transformation
To the poet by full moon.

And I’ll let my heartbeat slow, faltering as the music dies.