11/9/18
I stare at the ceiling.
I hear the tick of the bathroom
Clock tapping through the thin walls.
The blankets I lay in are damp and musty.
Their scent reminds me of my grandmother's
Love, of her rocking chair and toy chest
And the grand piano she kept in the basement.
I never figured out why she kept it down there.
Sigh. Roll over.
I'm looking to my left now.
Now only one ear hears the bathroom clock.
Now the ceiling is not mocking me with its
Scattering of glow-in-the-dark stars.
I put them there when I was a child
But I'm not a child anymore.
I'm Older, Wiser, Weaker.
I'm Sleepless.
Sigh. Roll over.
I'm looking to my right now,
Where a wall of stuffed animals
Look at me with blank bead eyes,
Their bodies still and soft.
I pick up a tiger, smell its fur.
It's like rain on a Saturday,
Like trying to write a novel in second grade,
Like seeing the crows hop in puddles outside.
Sigh. Roll over.
The plastic stars shine above me.
The mattress sinks under my body.
I remember my mother hushing me
To sleep, telling me to imagine--
Imagine your limbs are made of sand.
Second by second you feel heavier,
Weighed down by tiny sparkling grains.
These pieces are rocks, earth, they are you.
They are everything in the world.
I used to wonder at that incredible
Weight inside of me, but now
It bogs me down. I'm afraid that
Once I start sinking I will never stop.
I'll fall down through Antarctica, into space,
Where I will float alone forever.
Sigh. Roll over.
I close my eyes to the stars.
YOU ARE READING
Hello, November
PoetryThis is a collection of my writings from November 2018. It's a continuation of "Poetry" and "Poetry and Writes", but will be much shorter. I'll try to write something each day of the month and post as I go--even if what I've written sucks. Who care...
