forty-one

sleeping is a skill, and one in which i feel unpracticed: recently my sleep has been more staccato than usual. my nighttime is a routine of sharp dreams and clock-checking half-consciousness. even with the window wide open, i wake up sweating, the bedclothes snake-coiled round my legs and my t-shirt half pulled off. i feel oddly violated, the victim of some ethereal assault: muscles hurting, breath shallow, body wet.

in my dreams, the metal stairs that spiral up the sides of buildings unwind, become gigantic mechanic millipedes; they are huge and heavy, but lithe, twisting fluid through the streets, with a terrible sound of grinding joints.  i am immobile, can do nothing but wait for them to reach me, and crush me. the sky starts to strobe, and with each cymbal flare the insects appear paradoxical- static yet always moving closer. and then suddenly, stood in a small room, with green chairs and floral curtains (pulled open to let in a desperate, dying, half-light) i watch real millipedes circle the floor around my feet, becoming and unbecoming shadow. they move so fast that my eyes can't fix them; they move so fast that i see them only in sound: a long, high, hissing, the noise of angry, boiling water.

wake up.