you lie there, naked, 

in your mind, wrapped up, 

chasing each moment as an afterthought, 

not trying to come back to now, 

pressing your turns onto the essence of tomorrow—

uprooted, 

insolent, 

complete— 

not facing loss, but absence in return to zero,

that daunting will, pausing to compromise for being 

your second nature in its balance of regrets, 

disguised as halftime wins, with laurels withered 

under light, 

shimmering through the clouded dusks— 

an after-lie, soothingly solaced, 

an after-life, unwillingly glimpsed over, 

persisting through the bursts of silenced echoes, 

a will to average the chaos of denial, 

in measures full, of turned-down hourglasses.

(inspired by the sounds of ‘Sunlight’ by Max Richter)