night

tonight, the gravity feels heavier somehow. the mattress pulls me in, my body made of lead. silence cuts me deep to the bone. the horizon has reduced itself to the edge of my bed. this is an extinction of the soul, bare arms carry me into an impenetrable darkness and leave me there, a crying newborn alone with my fate. my dreams are made of ash, disintegrating in the wind, blown away outside my grasp, their echo rings in my ears. I am an empty field, no passerby shall notice me, no creature recognizes me in the night. I am rust on your silver spoon. I die with the last light and dead I rise with the sun.

…

a moth shoots for the moon, only to crush into the windowpane. its life dissolves like warm breath on icy glass, the same way my sleep fades away, buried under the worries and regrets pooling at my feet. my insomnia watches entire days and weeks come and pass, until the distant murmur of a train stitches the moment back together. brought back to life, I always end where I start, round and round in circles until the spiral wraps around my throat and tightens. breathing is as hard as realizing I've lived all these years without a heart. the slow dance of the curtains in the artificial wind of the ceiling fan, the unsent message on my nightstand, the scent of perfume on my pillow. everything is permitted in the blue hour.

…

in the cradle of night,

my scars open:

desecrated tombs,

the dead crawl out

and siege my eyelids,

sleep can't reach;

afraid to move,

not to wake you,

I am alone

with the white bones

and the rotten flesh.

under my ribs

a thorny bramble

twists and turns.

neither awake,

nor asleep

I walk the tightrope

of the threshold.

Dora Maar