wb :

Sleep

It's on days like this that I sit down and think about it. It comes in waves; I think about how long it's been since I've had a real heart to heart with Someone: pouring emotional truths, stir at low heat until we're simmering and made of glass. It's difficult to share a secret. I'm one of those that don't cry when it rains, because when it does, there's so much more to think about.

I love seeing the city geometry dissolve like this. Not much of a loss anyway, it was Them that outlawed sleep long ago: to Them, I'm just part of the dissolving city geometry, and in the cover of rain, I might close my eyes a bit. Life is good after all - I never expected much - and everyone's trying their best. What the rain didn't cover, the frosty window did, maybe windows have a purpose after all. I can see myself differently now, and I'm different from everyone else. It's the twenty-first century, the age of the preposition.

I like to watch people sleep. It's as if they've built windows around themselves, a sanctuary from hot-off-the-press and moral-of-the-story. Inside, they're looking at themselves differently, at peace and dreaming, searching for that emotional truth. I also hate it when people wake up. When they stop sleeping, it's only/always the P.R.O. talking. Maybe it's rude to want. Maybe etiquette has outlawed silence too.

Do you remember the morning? You were sleeping on that uncomfortable bench, and you asked me to join you. The uncomfortable bench prodded at my back, but I didn't notice. Because I was in your cube of windows, two dreamers, reaching for emotional truths, until we were made of glass. You stirred, mumbled something about being happy, curled up into a ball and continued sleeping.

You stocked up on midnight oil - I miss the dinners, I miss walking past mall after mall, two drifters in a sea of sensibility and stocks. I miss keeping each others' secrets, I knowing what you know, you knowing what I know, talking over coffee and under moon, while angry shapes with headlights cram in two straight lines to nowhere. I miss feeling sad when the androgynous voice on the train puts an end to the conversation, watching you until you dissolve into the geometric crowd. I miss the feeling that the moment right now, even in silence, is worth more than sleep, and telling myself that "so what if I'm tired tomorrow, because it's completely worth it"

Because every single time it was.

Labels: prose