Badges and stern black shoes
and shirts the color of 2:06 a.m.
knock on my door like rain.
Hats find residence in the fingers
that handcuffed a criminal and examined
the sanguine rivers which recently drowned all the flowers.

Then the lips, like coffins closed tight,
open to verify my name.
They ask me to take a seat
and I laugh because
it's past bedtime and I should be
lying down.

I hear the eyes, unsweetened like coffee,
clear their throats to make room for the news.
The word “accident” becomes a virus in my skin and lungs
so that breathing and feeling
become endeavors only for the wind,
which I wish would carry me
away, as a balloon floating into the horizon.

But I stay to tell them,
those mouths and shoes and badges and shirts,
this is all a mistake.
I'm only a kid,
just a suffocating bathrobe
and eyes still dripping with nightmares,
who regrets skipping the family dinner
and fighting with her sisters over the shower.

please, just let me
go to sleep.