LUCY ŞiiENiZ

In the middle of the night, something startles me. I think I heard someone trying to open my door or I felt the wooden interior of my room start to shake and tremor and I thought momentarily about the whole house collapsing and what it would feel like to fall through the second floor and land in the rubble. How I would locate myself between the planks of wood and what disaster would feel like in my body. In my head, I am not in pain but rather there is just an image of my skin blending into the yellow of the floorboards and I am just sat there disappointed. 

 

Once I have come to accept my perception of what this would feel like, I remember that the house is not in fact shaking, and I am safe and okay, and I am happy, remembering that my feet are touching solid ground. 

 

This chain of thoughts is obviously enough to roll me over into wakefulness and I submit to what will become of this night and neatly check it into my personal collection of ‘nights of disturbed sleep’.

 

I lie deeper into my mattress and this silence which is rarer than it should be. I take comfort knowing that there is nothing for me to do right now. I think about the relief of the dark sky outside my window and what it means to be relieved of the pressure of daylight. I hold myself for a second and I feel like the small rabbits we kept for a while as kids; my blanket soft fur. I take some deep breaths and slow down my small bunny heart. I am not captured, not prey but alive right now, breathing.

 

I slip on my glasses and take some time to find the small bottle of lavender oil. I push a few drops into the middle of the sole of my foot. I zoom out and see myself in Z shape on the floor of my bedroom pushing  oil into the sole of my foot and I think how peaceful I must look, working to locate my own tension.

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Downstairs, the lights are off and I open the refrigerator to feel the cool air and cold light. It feels nice against the quiet hum and the sweat of the air. I pour myself a glass of milk and I remember the evenings when I was young; my mum would pour us milk with a biscuit before bed. I am small again. Afterwards, we’d drift down the corridor to our rooms; I’d lie awake singing to myself or seeing patterns in the mess of clothes and furniture around me. I would find things in the corners of what darkness could not reveal but eventually soothe myself with the knowledge that whatever was hiding would remain hidden. 

 

The glass I have just drank from has a thick rim that some milk residue is clinging to. I stare at the full bin bags which need to be taken out; at the dirt collecting around the sink tiles and the plates that need to be put away because they have finished drying. I think about my housemates and I hope they are okay and I smile because they are asleep and that means they could be happy, curled up in their rooms throughout the house.

 

Sometimes I find myself on the verge of an absurd sort of caring; I am tempted to clean the surfaces so they could all wake up to the relief of something having been sanitized but I look down at my knuckles and see them grow old and worn from scrubbing, the skin peeling and trying to forget itself. I think about the waking hours; when my male housemates are crowded in the kitchen and the way I can only spend short amounts of time with them; how the air in the house becomes too tight on my skin and I find myself begging for the windows, wanting to stick my head out of them to drink the liquidity of the sky.

Really, all I want is to sit in the sink myself and bathe; washed and allowed to watch the water change colour. It would feel nice to soak and let the dirt loosen itself. I look at the stack of teacups, the breadknife but I leave them there,

 

get up without washing my glass, put on my sliders and walk out of the house. 

 

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The sky is large and I can feel the air of June on the bare skin on my legs, the soft cotton of my grey pajama shorts. The sky is the colour before the sun rises; somewhere between blue and grey and I'd like to make this colour myself later with my oils. Maybe replaster my bedroom walls this powder blue so I can spend more time here. Yes, that would be nice. 

 

It is good to be outside when nobody else is here and I love the night because my being awake is now a secret that becomes candied under my tongue.  

 

I can feel the strength in my glutes as I start to climb the carved steps that lead down the road and up; up into the woods. I cross the borderline where the concrete becomes soft mud and bark and yes, it feels good to be back and I've missed you. The humidity drops from my shoulders as the trees open to cooler territory. I’ve taken off my shoes to feel the cool undergrowth, the ground underneath me is becoming softer and is accepting my footsteps diligently. Soil marks my ankles.

 

I push onwards. The trees are listening and the air is thick with the frogs singing and the scent of wood after it has rained. Everything feels palpably living.The leaves are sprawling and spilling over each other, climbing to cover themselves. I realise I have never seen leaves so wide, waxed, almost shaped like lily pads, budding trees pale like sage. 

 

I crouch over on the floor. I set my feet flat on the riverbed, sitting into my knees to stretch the elasticity curdled in my legs. 

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A woman appears. She approaches me with her hair in tangled knots almost forming plaits like the tree branches behind her; curled in a soft way that is almost apologetic of its distress. Her ankles are swollen and pink like they have been carrying too much. She doesn’t speak but opens her palm.

 

I have known this river boat, this sky full of stars and darlings, this easy breeze that has picked up over the surface of the water and the vastness of this space as it widens open. The water soft and supple as I reach over to cup it into my hands and reach to the cool liquid between my fingers, across my palms over my forehead and the roots of my hair. I gasp the water and let it glaze down my throat like wax. I sit on the peeling white paint of the middle seat, feeling the ridges of the wood plank and its careful craft. I stretch my arms behind me so I can connect my shoulder blades and reach my arms out so that they may look like wings. I open my chest wide as I look out from the boat we’re on. 

 

She takes me across to another piece of land as gestures for me to exit the boat and so I do. She leaves me there, not waving or acknowledging really what just happened, the moment we just shared. I watch her effort in the push and pull of the oars and I realise the strength within her. I wonder if the boat has ever been led for her, how she found this place and came to me, knowing or just appearing to.