These pages are paper wasps, &
the salt in my eyes pile higher than Araya.
I close them &
taper into a bloodred chimera,
because this light in the ceiling
only turns back at night, &
this room was never meant
to be a bedroom. &
I can’t block this light from my eyes
because these pillows are made of stone, &
if I laid them over my face
I would feel like I was suffocating. &
I can’t lay these sheets over my eyes
because they are thick &
would kill the air like a vacuum.
This room was an office once, &
I need to work,
but I can’t work.
I’m distracted, &
I can’t work because I can’t sleep, &
I don’t know why I can’t sleep.
I press my eyes harder, harder
to see the Will-o'-the-wisp,
the ignis fatuus, &
watch colors metamorphose
under my eyelids
—maroon, malachite, & majorelle—
until they transmute to black &
I have nearly lost consciousness.
Yet my thoughts remain scattershot &
Miles Davis’ trumpet pans through my ears,
preceding the reverberating high notes
that lift me out of my trance.
Sweat has broken from my pores
& I have landed in a new room, &
it is now darker than it was before.
This new room with bloody
floors like an abattoir,
seeping into my torrid eyes
until something makes me
jolt out of bed.
Justin Gans is a writer from San Marcos, CA.