Waving from the road to dreaming, I fell into bed and didn’t catch the last thing Brian said to me. I heard “the nightly practicing for death” but that couldn’t have been it. I think I was asleep before he left. Those words were just my own brain haranguing me.
video: emilie simon – flowers
Sleep felt suffocating but required. I haven’t been very good at it lately. Instead it’s middle of the night and I can’t sleep. I’ve signed off-line, I’ve curled in my bed under the covers, book in hand, but I can’t read. Instead I catch myself unable to focus, to concentrate. My eyes scan a page twice before I give up and finally lay it down. I get up, I stretch into a coat, leave my apartment for the hall, go up a floor, and climb the ladder upstairs, breaking the lock on the trapdoor if I have to. (I bring a knife for this in my pocket). I stand on the cold black gravel until my body protests, then I leave. I climb down the ladder, put the trapdoor in place, and go back to bed. It doesn’t help. I don’t know why I do it. There’s just an essential need for escape, for change.
video: emilie simon – live in concert
Middle of the night and there’s a man next to me, tangled around me long and warm. I pause, hold myself still while I try to conceive of who the hell that could be. Yesterday kicks in, leads me to understand it’s my friend, that my heart may beat again, that my nails may sheathe. Middle of the night and there’s no roof here, no grand cascade of jeweled pillows, no ferret curled up on the floor. Instead of dark, the sheets are white, they smell like home, like him. His hair tickles a little and I carefully brush it aside. I don’t want to wake him. I would not miss this for the world. In fact, I know that’s the sacrifice. Tomorrow will burn me, tomorrow real life will begin again. A door opens and six close, pulled so by the wake of wind that’s blowing through our actions as he moves in his sleep and pulls me close to him.
Today I received a warning letter from Flickr, informing me that my Flickr PRO account will expire on Tuesday, April 18.
I had to read it twice, because it pained me to think it was so soon spring again.