hemophiliac

the rent is due on the first;
there is a grace

period.
then some

bills: cell phone, cable, car
insurance, student
loans, fines, tickets,
groceries, the accidents that were

my fault and my broken promise/s,
and more fines.

i was late this month. i will defer
again. in my dream
someone dies and i am okay
with it. i wake
crying, remembering smiling
in my dream, into a reality.
i feel clammy and flip the duvet
onto its colder side. i won’t be able to fall asleep again.

this is how my mother sleeps. she imagines herself dead,
she tells me, i will regret it so much, she tells me, when she is gone.
she is right: still i dream her dead. she can’t sleep because she’s afraid
that i might die while her eyes are closed. maybe she could save me if she doesn’t fall

asleep, she tells me.

i offer her a materialist reading: her flesh
is lacerated and these pisos are falling out of the split.
she takes a needle and a strand her own hair to sew it shut.
i pick up the coins from the floor she had spilt to put them back inside her skin,
but she has already finished threading.