Princess of light and dark in equal measure,
your fluorescent brow hovers where I attempt
sleep. At ease, I urge inane,
inept, uninterested sentries of
my better sense, whose bosses left
by the last unannounced
thing that seemed...to want
to reach you: but better sense
impales, and fades, over
exposure left — & trusted instinct
tells you I preserve still
detachment. Blink and turn,
it’s night again, and we’re marooned,
unlit, unacknowledged: dark and light.
I used to turn it on to drown out your snoring
Those random little screams and German exclamations you’d leak in your sleep
Urgent moans you’d emit every time I closed my eyes
I don’t think I got through one night without hearing you,
Before I got that fan
And then I couldn’t sleep without it
Even after you stopped talking to yourself
I convinced myself I needed it
And became accustomed to the sound of it
And turning it on meant it was finally time to pass through
To my beautiful second life
Where I was home and my mom was in the kitchen cooking something that wasn’t intended to feed 400 people and I would lie down in my room in complete darkness with the stars on my ceiling and consider that, cosmically, I may be completely worthless and that my life might begin and end without notice, but right where I was, I was happy.
Maybe this is all just a dream.
Do you ever think that what you think is happening isn’t even there?
What if the only things real are the things that you feel?
What if death is the end of the dream
And you wake up on the other side
Surprise! The state of your hair was a joke
And the clothes that you wore were a lie
Then something as simple as my mom downstairs
Is so wonderful it makes me want to cry.
And it was July
At my grandmother’s house
And my sister turned on the fan
And suddenly, unexplainably, there were tears in my eyes
And I was begging her to turn it off! Turn it off, please
Because I was in my old room with her
Eyes wide open in the dark
Trying to imagine myself away
Listening to its dull whir
And now, tonight
With so much left to do
It has only seemed fitting since I arrived to have the fan on
But the truth is, I am alone
And I reach up and flip the switch without a second thought
And it turns slowly and abruptly I am encompassed by this silence so loud
I feel like I’m swimming through jello
And since day one
The fan was white noise.
In Vain I Wake Her
I wake her because of the sun explaining itself through plants
because of the sky spread between fingers
I wake her because of words that chafe the throat
I love her with my ears
one must go to the ends of the earth and find the dew on the grass
I wake her because of distant things that resemble things here
because of people with no foreheads and names passing in the street
because of anonymous names of squares I wake her
because of manufactured landscapes of public parks
I wake her because of our planet which might be a mine in the bloody sky
because of smiles in stone, of friends who fell asleep between two battles
when the heavens were no longer a huge cage for birds, but an airport
my love is full of others; it is part of dawn
I wake her because of the dawn because of love because of myself because of the other
I wake her although that is more hopeless than calling to a bird grounded forever
For sure she has said: Let him look for me and see that I’m not there
That woman with the hands of a girl I love
that child who fell asleep not wiping off the tears I wake her
in vain in vain in vain
I wake her in vain
because her lips won’t be able to tell her
I wake her in vain
somebody’s face in the sand must be promised to the forgotten name
if not then cut off my hands and transform me to stone
Translated by Nick Benson and Kristina Vušković