Monday

The Land Between Solar Systems

Múm-


























Alarms drowing in the whistles of winter...
Melting images.
Multi-leveled vibrations infiltrating the stillness.

Fingers to my lips.

Light.

Bright.

Morning:

my eyes open slowly like the cracking of a door by a hot summer breeze. They change expression under the weight of lashes, to the sound of ritualistic humming coming from under the wooden grates: concomitantly breaking and supporting my back. Normally I would hush this sound with swift seamless motion, but today my reflexes are still tucked-away in slumber.

I can hear the winding haunt of broken piano chords streaming from behind stained-glass. Cars and busses pushing on, polluting below. Planes humming above the clouds caressing the sky. Stars colliding. They have all come in as back up; trying to carry my body to greet the new day, even though I already had as I was closing my eyes to dream. But did I dream? I wipe the only evidence that I had been sleeping from the inside corners of my eyes. Look out the window bedecked in wonderment: where did the sun come from? I feel like it has only been mere moments since I crawled into bed to shut down, under striped cotton and a beat-up wool blanket that has been in the family since France, 1967; Seconds since I hung up the phone with Joe even as the recollection of the discourse louches, and the memory of my dreams slowly release themselves into the air, making it hard for me to separate the details of the two.

My breaths are slow and heavy under the shadows of pretense. Thick like a southern drawl, they coat the air speckled with dancing dust in the thin streams of sunlight pouring through the glass. There is a halation coming from the burnt dense fog, outlining the edges of glass and cement that scrape the sky. It erases that which usually stares back at me, and casts my bed in a fuzzy, orange glow. The warm light only eases my eyes back to where they were before the call of today. I fold myself back in my mind surreptitiously, hoping that time won't see me. I just want to stay cuddled in this cocoon. The weatherman had said it was going to be a cold and rainy morning, and the thought of fighting the war against winter to get to work is not the most motivating of causes.

The simulation of heat crawling over me, rolls me onto what now feels like the softest feathers. I drift like a boat on the ocean--asleep and awake-rocking back and forth. It carries me away to oceans behind my eyes. Emerald hills spilling into the white crests of the singing waves. I see familiar faces of complete strangers and surf their cadences. Holding onto nothing but some invisible hope that spins me back to reality. The footsteps cracking the floors breed feelings of discomfort. I just want to be here for the hours ahead; writing stories and morning hymns that sing quietly on the insides. Painting blank canvases with charcoal words and red ink from my heart. This morning break breeds so much creativity, I think. Fills my soul with translucent beauty that pours from the inside out, as my conscious and subconscious minds are still woven tightly by these colorful strings of light, trapping thoughts, images and words into a heap waiting to be spread out before me into tiny chapters.

When I have to cut the chord to free myself from these moments, I feel I am only operating as part of what I am. Like mismatched parts are glued. Mechanically taking me through the work day, blurring the stanzas that were twirling around me before I climbed out of rectangular bliss... And just as I had tricked the sounds into thinking they could dissolve into a lullaby, a cold gust of reality freezes them and stabs me with a final shriek. Muscling me to meet my new day, it pries open my eyes; and with that, it opens my arms and opens my heart to mirror the doors that line my path under the rising sun before me.

All is well.