Wrote this on December 27, 2009. Recently unearthed.

1

What is the use of the day and the night? I’ve often wondered about why a sun should need to perturb the sleeper’s eyelids. Perhaps it is among the most despised disturbances in life, waking from a much preferred—or much needed—slumber. Yet waking up also assumes that there is a life you belong to; chores that need to be fulfilled, jobs that need to be worked, people that need to be loved. The same cycle is the concept of life simply going because that is just how it is. I concur with Robert Frost’s draconian opinion about life: “It goes on.”

Conversely, sleep is as much a foe as it is a friend. But who can hate sleep? A patient, perhaps, etherized on a lonely hospital bed with an absent mind and soul; a widowed grandmother alone at home, hiding from old age; or even a youthful boy clinging onto his blanket-shield to evade his fears of a dark bedroom.

I’ve never been a spiritual person. Sometimes, when my story leaks to unctuous others, they talk of incubus and spiritual attacks with perverse conviction. That Satan had been summoning demons to intrude my nightly relapses. I know, in all earnest, that the events that took place were far from the norm. But I can never judge if someone was trying to “tell” me something; a human, a demon, an angel… maybe even my own conscience had something to say.

Yes, who am I to know? A first year college student, at the time, and I had yet to explore the strange world around me. It’s fascinating how after meeting only one person, all the difference had been made in my narrow world. Yet, I was still nauseated from the high school bubble—the social awkwardness and the criticisms for just being. I wanted to be alone, forever. I wanted to believe that life held more meaning—that I had more purpose to breathe the intoxicating fumes of Southern California than to die and have my ashes inhaled by some other living creature.

If anything, the experience only kindles my spirit.

Timekeeper

By ten o'clock, I said
to watch the time;
I heard the muffled sigh of evening
rub the grass fields that had been
licked by the sprinklers.
I heard your eye
insisting that it was only eight.
Tickled by my voice, it laughed at the sound
and fanned itself with two billowy folds of silk.
A white ribbon landed in my hand
after it rolled off your cheek
when you turned your face from the window.
I tied it back onto your neck
and wrapped the same cord onto my arm.
It felt like eight o'clock.

frivolous; levity - characterized by a lack of seriousness
salient - 1) prominent or conspicuous; 2) projecting or pointing outward; 3) leaping or jumping
docile - 1) easily managed; 2) easily trainable; "A docile dog"
demur - to make an objection

Lick the wounds;
scratch&smell it. Remember it;
remember how the dead skin wears down,
and how proud it is; knots on canvas,
bounding, trapped together.

Lick the saggy interpretation;
smile or frown:
"Happiness is a decision."
Tread in the sand,
imbibe yourself--
drown in each other; swim.
Balloon to the surface, with
appropriate detachment; nick the ropes
off colored air balloons;
let go-- let go-- let go--
Inhale, mesmerize. Exhale: trance.
Forget the little things (let go--),
forget the big things (let go--),
forget yourself (let go--),
forget it (let go--).

Baby Bird made an irenic proposal
away from the nested; an adamant
recoil from the twig pile, a yearning
to soar--off the unlidded cage--,
(never again) to relent to Eyas.