Three minutes past

One held breath, staring a clock past midnight, with a pinch of warm ache behind eyelids, remembering the nauseating flavor of hope swishing in aged spit. Two crumpled missives pasted into internet slurry dangling in retort to contradictory responses. Three resignations cumulatively folded into the self, knowing the odds of the bug crawling all the way across the desk before thumb and index fingers smear its exposed body are nil. Somehow the insect does! Applauded by soundlessness recognizing the spectators have all become preoccupied. For today I was a man and will become a boy again, into the sexless invisibility, praying to wallpaper and watching fan blades with a dry tongue.