when you say “just give me five minutes”, you know it will take closer to an hour. you are so easily bruised. your skin, the flesh under the tissue, the air above it—everything around you is a cloud of black and blue. you try a new method, but the bell chimes and you fall from the tower. (how quickly patience is lost when we are cold, when we are hungry, when cannot find what we are looking for.) you raise your voice from the ground up, and the fire burns out. you make it there from the middle of the night. you drink your coffee, all wounds and muddles, and speak in slow copper-coloured tones.