conversations with sleeping people

I’m sorry 

When I said I felt like you were holding me hostage, 

I meant that you were the hostage negotiator 

And my mother held her pistol to my temple,

Arm around my throat, the way she loved to hug me.

I can feel the cold metal against the bone, 

And when you beg someone to drop the weapon,

I don’t know which one of us you’re talking to. 

Sorry. 

And sorry for saying sorry like people say ‘um.’ 

It’s not the word I'm looking for. 

You see, English is my second language, 

And Sorry is my native tongue,

Taught to me by touch like knives. 

It translates roughly to “stop,” to “please

Let me haunt these halls if being a ghost means 

I’ll get to live without the body we all hate.”

Sorry. It’s all getting so heavy now. 

I have to go before the waters of quiet 

Rise above the sea level of our bed 

And carry us out across the great Melancholia. 

I know you think I’m quiet, 

But there is a deeper quiet, like the one from under a bed 

When you play competitive hide and seek 

But it’s not for fun.

Despite all its rehearsals, it’s a game with live ammo,

And the sound of your breath 

Might as well be an airplane engine 

Because there is something moving in the house:

Footsteps of parents become strangers.

My chest tries to crawl under the floorboards

Like some Tell-Tale Heart, and I am with the Cask of Amontillado,

I am both Montresor and Fortunato,

I am sinking into the stillness, listening for the Raven, 

The rapping, tapping on my childhood door, 

Quoth the Raven, “Sorry.”