we can fight it off/axs

it is a long list of names I will never meet, a single picture, I could never face in the dark, and I start to crawl alone. while you can feel the chemicals building up momentum, it is always, vague, blurry. arms move in slower axs, thoughts ragged behind your body. I record this: it is here.

I always play coy, but it is not a game, just—it really is an aversion, to name it like the night, the names of moons—Depression, or.

but you can move. you can escape. you can get up. you can pour that glass of milk.

Recall their faces, how they fumbled in the Halloween light, just a smile. And you were stupid, standing in the rain in your socks, showing your ugliest look to the camera: just a smile, completely unguarded.

I write this, and try to stay in this tense, not slip behind the haze of broken angles: you are not alone.