There were days when I was barely awake. 

Nights the drumming on my ribs kept me from sleep. 

It is in the space of neither waking nor sleeping that I’m visited by them. Friends that didn’t stay; because my edges were too sharp or because death is greedy. Versions of myself, twin in only body. A boy with careless hands.

Shape-shifting ghosts haunting the dark space of unconsciousness, things we push aside or declare buried that we are only able to confront when our eyes are closed.

The conversations we wish we could do over, ones that happened replayed on tape loop, and the ones that never did. Words we can only say asleep.

The sleep talk.