the waiting. sometimes. too long. holds her head in her hands. the heels providing a providence of pressure that she wishes might deliver her right up into the indefatigable way the word sanctuary gets trapped at the back of her throat in those disconnected moments, disconsolate, when she's trying to dial a phone number or she's forgotten the location of her house keys. chapters. sentences like serpents waiting to gash her skin. and she loathes the waiting. the way weeks work themselves into incomprehensible months and years and lifetimes she's already known that weren't living. she's already ripped them all down. the memories. the pictures posted with sticky tape on the wall. the scent of the word love and how it lives sometimes, just there, out of reach, at the back of her refrigerator. instead of sleeping she opens pop cans. the dumb clicking sound the tongue makes when the tab presses itself against itself reminds her of what life must be. but she always pours that contents out. can't stomach the high sugar and carbonation. she wants life to be what it was when she was small and before the rotation of the world leaned itself so indelibly on her image. she wants to go back and edit out all of the glitches in the film. roll the reel back and let the loose end tick and tick itself until she finally figures out. how to sleep through the night.