headachey and awake, all midnight hour on a work night. trying to prove to myself that self-control means bolting the door and putting all thoughts of walking to the bar into the storm cellar of my mind. and yet the real reason surfaces, blown all Dorothy and wild around the air inside this apartment with its too short ceilings: i'm broke, can't afford a drink, will subsist on salsa and cans of beans, two eggs left, will cook them each, one at a time.

even past midnight and my veins are still heat-swollen. my head rolling like a scrap of wood upon accosting seas. awash. adrift. nothingness to nothing. rien. il n y a pas.

and it's late hours like these, dream of those crinkled eyes, his smile, the moon fullbright and piercing the thick blackness like an awl. the stars vibrate incomprehensibly. i can see nothing but glittering rails, hear nothing but the crunch of balast beneath my work boots, can taste the salt and sulpher in the air. and it was sacred, those summer nights left nothing for the yearning. the big blue yonder more palpable than breath, than the excitable churning of heart in chest, of the teeth held tightly in anticipation.

i once traveled like a free woman, vacilandista, no lead on these souls, unfettered, unadulterated, the unclean itinerant, oh me, oh life, yes me.

and now:

is it true, it's never too late to get it all back? how much have we just given away?