Content warning: This article mentions suicide

a blink carries me home / by the ferry, following the jagged / zig zag of my straggling streets / cries of come along / but it dissipates before I can / keep any in stubborn fistfuls / memory will not protect you / I dream and dream / until it returns / intact, but touched / altered / consciousness disappoints, of course / dream me would leap off / of hopeful rooftops into the night sky / blistering with distant stars / if it could promise me the same roof / my heart is under / I come alive in slumber / and how I miss the stench of / real people and real feelings / how I reach for the fading neon / the next bus stop slotting me back / neatly in line / into an old life / but you pass me by in my wake / you tell me to stay / and I never do / instead resorting to / the messiest brand of nostalgia / in deserter dreams / I miss you. / I open my eyes.

Image: Nicole Lau