Noise

All the half awake drivers watch the spire
at the top of the police station.
They ignore the lights since they don’t
tell them anything they don’t already know.
How to stop and go is written
on the dashboard in black nail polish
that she used to put on every time
he picked her up, before she put him down.

They’re both so far from home now
it is sickening to them when they return
in distant dreams while they are trying to
reset what sleeping means.

The elevator ceiling looked like metal
Swiss cheese or the six on a six sided die.
This is where they all cry on their way
back out to the city after getting news
they wasted every day.
Nothing could have made her stay
the way she was when they were first
together, but she was better now
that she was on her own.

When she gets home at night she looks
forward to the quiet and the paper tearing
walls that look like faces if you turn
your head just slightly.
She does this nightly and the owls
on her rooftop sing like punk bands
at the edge of the horizon
like they knew she needed any kind of noise.