[morning playlist]

7 A.M.’s dressed in midnight’s clothes. The year has changed, gotten older and I, I too. And you, sitting across the table from me; up too early yet well rested, the rest of the day waiting for one or both of us to sigh. “It’s a comfortable one,” one of us will say. Forming the words taking more effort than the lifting of our eyes towards what this world is, is becoming, became in the dead of night two nights ago. Yearly war zones reborn in neighbors’ backyards. Pyrotechnics testing the hearts of dogs and cats, that one old man fighting for sleep beneath the overpass. “It’s too early for music,” I want to say. Heartbeats beneath my hoodie disagree. A look across the table at downturned eyes kickstarts a symphony.