This day is mine
This day is mine. If it were the last it could be the last and nothing would come of it outside of my skin. I have become a point. For a long time I have been a shadow in unconscious dreams. If I could buff away the fingerprints I made on shop windows I would scour the city for them. My fingerprints no longer lead to me. This day will become between me and my skin. If it is the last I wont leave anything to reflect on. If I go on I will be painted over. I wont go on. This is the way to open myself wide into something that I have never been. I am too material. I want to walk on the sand at the beach.
I lay my cheek into the thick brown sand. It doesnt cascade but crumbles shapelessly as I press into it. The sun is grey and low for midmorning. Over the ocean a band of shapely black clouds strikes a fine faint line of sky between its belly and the horizon. I never made that first choice from which everything would spill out. When I recall old recollections I see a similar sky. There is no way for me to shake out why or what little chain would have put me under it, but these skies are so infrequent here. They are real skies. They are unending because they end, and I can capture them, from end to end. I can see their ends and that makes the turbulent sky something to me. It is not everyones white sky with everyone under it. The tails of the black clouds taper north and south up the beach and curl further inland as they diminish, enfolding the coast.
I dont dream. When I realize that I am dreaming I am awake, watching my hands flutter over the metal desk. They dont move fast but they disappear in their movements. They detach themselves bloodlessly from my body. They dont race off on their fingertips. They continue to sort and file but they are gone. I see the tips of my sleeves limply hanging still and a foggy blue stain in the air that swirls but doesnt float away. That is there. Awake but not present. When I dream in my bed I am sitting up with my back against the wall under the window. I am on top of the sheets and I clutch my wrist because I think it is someone elses. I hold it to make sure it doesnt leave me and it is cool in my hand. It is mine. I watch the rectangle of light on the blank wall opposite me and see the shadow of a palm in it. I am awake. Holding my wrist, I focus on whether I am feeling the contact in my hand, which is touching, or my wrist, which is being touched. My skin is always prickled by the onset of fever or by the warmth of someone watching me. I layer my clothes to brace my skin from the air. It is too sensitive. I feel eyes that can see around corners, whose pupils are shadows, piercing through the breeze and sun.
