Things are different now,

different since then.

Since when? Since whence

“when was” was whence it was then.

Then was when, since then.

Since then I’ve been sleeping,

sleeping the silent sound sleep.

The sound of sleeping silenced 

by silences silently sided 

in favor of silent sound sleep.

Sleep must be someone’s doing.

Some one being some self

or the doing of someone

so one with some so-called self 

that someone sighed and some self sod off.

My waiting body weighs on me.

If I were waylaid way longer than what they say, 

what may I say as I weigh my options in vain,

vainly weighing the weight as I wait to see 

a way away from the weighty wakeless wait.

Then again I turn and thrash and crash

and however rash I thrash I’m still half

the past, the past which held me back and 

sat passively passing me back through my

sad so sorry self, a self so sorry to have thought

they were trash to have been stuck in the past to have

known nothing but rashes and gashes and wounds and

scars and nothing is par to the hope still so far from the proverbial 

trash.

Benjamin Burton (they/them) is a second-year and an aspiring Creative Writing major from Tennessee.