Nighttime Is Tricky

 all the names i never say are curled

like a fist in the base of my skull

excepting sleep and death

we're all crying all the time

our eyes continually bathed

in the salt of our tears

lost you before i had you

but i'll meet the spectre of you

in the dark

add you to my list of things 

about which i could cry

all the time

it heals nothing, time or crying

the body instead, calcifies our losses

turning them to stone

and nothing takes the heaviness away

or fills the hollows

the stony weight of grief just goes to sleep

eventually sinks beneath the waves of 

thoughts

until the night it wakes, 

kicks to the surface 

of the ocean in our brains

crying out

and we remember

we lift it, dripping wet

heavy

soggy

laden with memory

we shush it

maybe rock it back to sleep

hold it under

force it back into 

the depths