I don’t have to wake up early anymore.
No one needs me. No one asks.
The phone stays quiet, its black mouth shut.
No one says, we need you on this,
like I’m the second coming of someone who mattered.
I don’t have to wake up, but I still do.
Still let the morning gut itself open across my windshield,
still hear the birds screaming like they’ve got somewhere to be.
I roll the window down. Let the cold bite.
I could drive. I could leave. But I don’t.
I sit in the car until I forget what my hands are for.
The last time I had a conversation,
it was about a movie I hadn’t seen.
I nodded like I got the reference,
like I still knew how to belong in a room
without apologizing for taking up space.
My mother calls. I let it ring.
She leaves a voicemail that starts with Are you eating?
and ends with God will sort it out.
I wonder what God thinks of me—
if He’s watching, if He cares,
if He drafts messages and never hits send.
The car becomes a room I didn’t mean to live in.
The streetlights flicker like eyes that won’t look away.
Maybe I should go inside. Maybe I should lock the door.
Maybe I should leave it open,
just in case someone still remembers how to find me.
The gas light flickers on.
I close my eyes. The birds keep singing.
Like the world isn’t burning,
like I’m not sitting in the middle of it,
windows cracked, waiting for something
that won’t come.
