Every Midnight Since

It happened the night you stopped calling back, my head just lifted off in my sleep, neck stretching like the silence between your last text and now. I'm nukekubi, cursed to separate every midnight, floating in doorways you'll never walk through again. The apartment still has your coffee mug. My body's still downstairs waiting. But my head keeps rising to this burnt-out threshold, jaw stuck open on your name, tethered by something thinner than promise. I can't go back down and I can't float away. This is what abandonment does, it severs you but won't let you leave.