A Poem for the Sleepless

a poem by matt ⭒ july 10, 2026

one hour and sixty-one minutes past infinity,
chromatic dust shimmers on a dim phone screen;
I stare into imagined memories on the ceiling,
but with every blink they instantly disappear,
vanishing into the emptiness of my bedroom air—

there's always an unsettling comfort in staying up so late,
watching misty images of my past reanimate and dissipate:
smoke and shadows drifting through faded childhood halls,
two familiar yet younger figures with the same lovely smiles,
holding so softly the hands of a boy no older than five—

and he looked like me! some spirit suddenly jolts me
into this liminal sensation between sleep and reality:
I half-consciously extend my hands toward the ceiling,
hoping to even momentarily grasp that long-lost memory,
but I feel nothing but the stillness of that bedroom air—

and the strange regret of remembering something that was never there.