It is 6:51 in the morning, and the sun is spilling in to frame your face perfectly. They see you there, ethereal, peaceful, present.. and yet they don’t smile any longer. They hesitate to reach over and kiss the evening off of your lips, so much so, that you forget how they taste. Instead, they sigh heavily enough that it wakes the swallows in the nearby oak tree. The words of Goethe spilling off the paper and falling onto the floor, the teapot his mother gave you last November. They sit and watch you quietly, paper and porcelain outstretched as if to offer some kind of unspoken solace. You thank them, and turn the page to immerse yourself in the woes of Dickinson. Poetic misery is the only consolation you know of, and it is more than enough.