for Rebecca

This life is a merciless dinner guest,
an impolite request,
a fumbling run-on sentence
stumbling drunk around its meaning.

Sometimes I wish there were at least a witness
to the tightchested nights I have spent with
held breath,
two fingers to the sublunar pulse,
squinting at a slight figure that slips ever out of view
with a ghostly chuckle and a curtain rustle.

I am a confused but earnest animal
tumbling from a careless kick
into this accident of stolen time.

Please understand.
I can't claim what isn't mine.

I can't make sense of what a self is enough to decide
whether it's better to be selfless or selfish.

But when I remember a sleepless young Elson
holding her breath and
swallowing stars
to stave off death

I feel small and ashamed
and want to stay enough to save someone

at the very least just one,

without witness.