Saturday, February 9, 2013

Ekphrasis

Sometimes your mind spills.  I don't know if you think I can't feel you, sitting up there, running your hands through your hair.  Your sighs are deafening.

Something about the moonlight brings imaginings to life.  The first time your mind brushed against my face, I thought the apocalypse had come.  Jolting up in bed, fists clenched in front of my face, eyes closed as though that's the way to meet one's doom.  Nothing more touched me, but a persistent rustling.  I squinted one eye open.  Your room -- our room -- was a snow globe of leaves.  I was halfway out of bed to shut the window when I saw it already closed.  You sat on the edge of the mattress, white skin gleaming in the moonlight, head bowed, breath deep.  I touched your shoulder.  It was warm.  You murmured something and the leaves moved a little slower.

Some people sleep walk.  Some sleep talk.  You sleep summon.

The next night, I lay rigid, overly-aware of your back pressed against mine, eyes wide open to the dark expanse of my room -- our room.  Waiting for you to move.  Waiting for something to happen.  You barely shifted all night.

You had me fully convinced it had been my dream.  But it happened again.  I woke to scales slipping across my cheek.  Peeked open my eyes.  The moonlight again.  My room an aquarium, filled with air and goldfish as long as my arm.  They dove in and out of dresser drawers, following the currents of our breath, spinning in torrents around your head, still bowed.  You sat.  I pretended to sleep.

I tried to tell you once, but the pancakes had just come to the table and you seemed more concerned with your syrup than tales of moonlight.  I let it go, drowned it in tea.

Are you lonely?  Last night was thunder clouds and wetless drops pounding into your room -- our room --, blue from the moonlight through your curtains.  Fireless lightning.  Noiseless thunder.  Like a scream under a pillow, under the water. Spilling.