I've got that late night ache. My joints groan quietly, grinding against each other, pressing themselves to the muscle walls in protest. My eyes squint at faint light, hoping for darkness that isn't coming. The air is too cold- chilled even beneath the blankets. My fingers keep on typing endless words. Page after page of nonsense bleeds out on the screen, going on with repetition and the clattering of the keys. I close my eyes, daydreaming about falling into a moment of not thinking, not angrily judging the hours of my day, of the month, of the life I'm living. Music plays, not that my ears are really listening to the guitar that urges me to sleep when I've got so much to do. The house is waiting for me to fall under so it too can sleep. A house only sleeps when everyone else does. The darkness of the rooms doesn't matter, if I lie awake, the house is watching over me, even after the nightlights are blown out. It watches my eyes water and me rub my back in anguish. It watches hold the cup to my lips and hope for water, and it sighs at my breath of defeat as only a trickle comes to greet my mouth. And it shakes it's head when I decide I'd rather face thirst than leave the nest and travel to the kitchen for water. My fingers are ice, but the corners of myself are warm enough, like the back of my knee, or the hollow of my neck pressed against my shoulder. Even my hair hurts, it's folded the wrong way across my pillow and I can't give up on holding out in the pain. What fresh hell lives in the no-mans-land between consciousness and dreamland. Come now, sleep, I beg of you, just for a little while, and then I'll forget we forgave eachother and we can continue this silly fight.

Sleep...

A sestina about New York. Never been- want to. It's a bit sloppy, no meter or anything. Also- try to ignore the form I typed in.

words:

grime

street

kiss

night

slap

rise

A A girl who lives within the boisterous New York night

B Lives on instant coffee and thrives in the dim street

C behind the twenty-four hour deli with a cigarette and a kiss

D on her lips. She strolls the alleys with the sharp smack

E of her flavorless gum and a narrowed eye to the rise

F of the sun above the shining city and the glittering grime.

F Her life is glimpses of grafitti as she races along the grime
A covered sidewalk, late for her first shift of the long night
E ahead. She's never phased when petty crime is on the rise
B because what goes up must come down, and the street
D hums a melody to her with soft sirens and the smack
C and slap of her shoes on the uneven pavement. A kiss

C is stolen while waiting for the crosswalk to turn, a kiss

Fin the snow by the glow of neon lights with grime

D on their gloved fingers, holding eachother in the smack
A of cold wind down 45th. She watches countless taxis in the night
B on the fire escape, inhaling the air smelling of the street
E below with it's late night Chinese. She will will always rise

E before the sun, yawning away the nagging tiredness into the rise

C of noise as most everyone else awakens. Leaving a kiss
B on her coffee mug, she rushes out to the always there street
F with it's steaming man holes and swarming groups, the grime
A of sleep still clinging to her eyes, as well as the last night's
D make up, faded from it's stark black. She awaits the smack

D of her bike's tires on the board walk by the beach. The smack
E wakes her up as she breathes in the coney island brine. Rise
A and fall, short and fast, her breath comes heavy as the night
C weighs down on her morning. She remembers the last kiss
F of her evening in the darkened hallway. A layer of greasy grime
B clings to her unwashed body as she paces again the familiar street

B Waiting for something she isn't sure exists. She's exhausted, street
D noise rattling in her brain melting into the patter of rain and the smack
F of thunder over the high up towers growing up from the filth and grime
E that slithers along the gutter into the sewer below. The hills rise

C above each other, with her watching in heavy eyed delirium. No kiss
A rests on her lips anymore, only a restless pout that mourns a night

A f That had no grime waiting for her, only sleep, she mourned a night

C d that offered no smack of laughter somewhere or long and tiring kiss

E b The clatter of the street never lets her sleep, for if you never fall you never rise.

First Flight

I did it. I did what every teenager longs to do. What teenagers revel in, what they wait years for, what they suffer almost endless trials and tests for. I got my license. Of course, I am about nine months over due for upgrading from permit to license- but I'm not focusing on that! I'm focusing on this moment. This freedom and sense of success that I have so painfully earned with near-death experiences and scary moments with sassy DMV workers. I can go anywhere (in the tri-county area... when my mom isn't using the car), do anything (that I couldn't do without my mother in the car), see anyone at anytime ( as long as those people don't live far enough that I need money for gas and it's before curfew)! Such power, freedom! I'm almost to adulthood. I suppose I'll be needing a job soon to pay for gas for when the car becomes mine... And the car does need a new timing belt... And the car does get pretty dirty pretty fast. What am I saying? WHO CARES? All that matters right now is that when I want ice cream at nine thirty at night and my mother doesn't feel like getting up, I CAN GET MY ICECREAM. I'll have to pay for it myself then... but again, who cares? We all pay prices for things we want in life, or at least adults do. And I'm halfway there. I guess.