i’ve taken to
sleeping with the phone. if only to avoid rushing through the house half awake searching for the source of the ring. but words don’t always amount to satisfactions. stray syllables passed through the reverberations of tongues and teeth. wires and digital connections. say something i’ll have to forgive you for later, he whispers into my ear in a bed miles from here. i remember reading a poem once that repeated the phrase—i want to be a bad woman, my voice says while i sleep, i want to be a bad woman. we laugh and fill up the loneliness with words, breath, silences.