chronotype of wolves
it’s because, at this uncommon hour, i owe no explanations
and the lights strung along the ceiling burst into sweet,
red glow: pinprick berries, drops of crimson like
blood on the bones of winter trees
and maybe i should learn icelandic right this minute,
my lips forming new shapes along the ridges of its round singsong,
words of an ancient, snow-flecked tongue. or arabic,
consonant clusters of unfolding meaning, letters like shapes strung
together on a string, a chain of hearts, an h and two bs
equals love. i am delighted to understand this new idea,
that hbb is always related to affection, connection. it is
so easy to be delighted by things at 3 am, long after i should
have been dreaming.
it’s because i have time now, in these stolen hours in which
tree shadows stretch across the windows and outside, and
the air is just starting to drape itself in cold and to exhale its fog
into the golden streetlamp glow.
i have time now to exist and to remember me who was there,
in deep forests and the smell of earth and rain, dark in the night
world, dark in the deep, throbbing bass notes and in jewelry made of
bones. this laughing, tangle-haired, black-eyed me, smelling of wind and fire,
who is swallowed in bright white daylight by the clawing
demands of capital, the gagging of the whispered songs that roar deep in my blood
in these red-lit hours of blur and haze, a bone-deep remembering takes
precedence over the eyeblink of sleep that holds never enough time
to dream
***
light pollution
i remember the feeling of hope i had, the way it made the night come alive like fireflies in my chest. drinking red wine over your scratched up table, playing cards in the flicker of candleflame, walking through the quiet, dark streets when I started to feel trapped by four walls.
you saw me then – or i thought you did. i thought you saw my need to be outside under stars and the church spire, to walk past the closed shop windows on streets that were 45 minutes and a world away from the liquor stores and squealing tires of my night world.
along those quiet streets, i didn’t have to clutch a blade handle in my pocket and glance back at every corner, tightness in my limbs, ready every moment to release the desperate self-preservation, a constant metallic sour at the back of my mouth.
this life has been a long night walk sometimes, in my neighborhood of broken glass and sirens. my fist hasn’t been able to unclech from that knife, and i thought, in the beginning, that i felt your fingers wrapping themselves around mine and warming them, causing them to ease their grip. i thought i could lean back into you and look up at the vibrant, breathing stars. and be permitted to breathe, myself.
unimaginable, to live in such proximity with another person and feel so unseen. how you could sit with your black boots up on the table, the noise of the soccer game a soundtrack to my near collapse under students and college courses, online deadlines and dissatisfied supervisers. scrapping together what legal knowledge i’ve gleaned from websites and the lawyer i can no longer afford (and never really could), to protect my child. dirt on the floor. empty dog food bowls. bruised and swollen veins, constant pain, stumbling down stairs with baskets of laundry.
how can someone who gave me rose gardens and pulled me outside until my heartbeat aligned under that pulsating sky watch his lover push through to the point of collapse, and then say, you didn’t clean enough?
no more night walks. no more magic. only a slow-turning, hardening stone in my chest, crusted around the ember that glowed on those crisp san francisco nights when we saw one another –
or i thought we did.
Photo by Jaleel Akbash on Unsplash
