a testament to vulnerability

This is the last time. I’m making a promise that this’ll be the last time and I’m nailed to the floor, feeling the floorboards against my chest, my stomach, my thighs. My throat is sore from all the cigarettes and I’m trying to count the cigarette ends in the Majorca ashtray, breathing heavily and the ashes spreading out on the floor. All your vinyls are scattered around me, some of them I’ve taken out of their covers, the black discs reflecting the lights from the streets. You don’t know anything about this. You don’t know anything about laying here breathing in ashes, breathing out ashes, breathing and knowing that you’re actually alive, no matter how unpleasant, how pleasant. You don’t know anything about how it’s almost 5:30 in the morning and I can still hear the wind rattling in the scaffolding across the street . You don’t know anything about laying here and listening to the world being sound asleep because you are deaf there under the covers, are your toes still peeking out from underneath your duvet? I lift my arm and drag the needle back onto the Billie Holiday record, hoping for a second to make a scratch to forever remind you of these nights you do not know of. This will be the last time.