Day 8

I’m supposed to write an aubade or a nocturne, or both, but damn if I can’t write anything except my residency evaluation, these days hitting like a triple play—like the time I worked at summer camp and it felt like you could have lived a lifetime within the space of one afternoon. By nightfall I am so juiced up and overtired I have forgotten what sleep is, heart pounding in my ears, eyes throbbing for lack of rest, body growing weary by the moment from this talk and tension and beautiful endless striving of hearts.

I will try.

For Sandra.

Letter to a far off place:

Watch us from out at sea, when, at twilight, the lights in our hotel rooms blink on and off signaling the sleep patterns of writers. We must look dangerously reckless, moored to Seaside in our titanic hotel, our lamps lit long and short sending Morse code to your little island. The insignia of insomnia is unmistakable, small pockets of our ship ever-lit, the sleepless bent at their keyboards, praying. “We have no answers and any answers we have only change the question.” But can you make out these salt-worn lines on my lips? Can you see the cheek-cracking smile across my face? Can you feel the warmth as it fills me now, my lamp light finally dimmed?