A percentage of perchance

I am fas­cin­ated by sleep. How it breathes, how it rhymes, how it reas­ons, how it tastes. The moment­ary lapses it takes in the spaces between each breath. You have taught me this and that and so much else. And all under the same moon, too.

Some­where at the other end of how long is a piece of string, I have been explor­ing how sleep looks. I have a rev­el­a­tion to announce. It does not look like closed eyes, des­pite appear­ances round here that give lie to that fact. No, it looks like dust crys­tals — sand from the sur­face of another planet — gently raised from the corners of my face. I have always been curi­ous as to what my soul looks like, what everyone’s souls look like, but now I think I am even more curi­ous to know what your sleep looks like. Espe­cially yours.

Send me your sleep. Don’t send me to sleep. No. Send me your sleep.

I shall unwrap the pack­age you have care­fully wrapped in tis­sue paper, lower my ana­lyt­ical gaze to the same level as the desk, and exam­ine. Rapt. There has to be a secret in those two small crys­tals, each one peeled and lif­ted gently from the detritus of your eyes come morn­ing, come wak­ing, with all the exactitude of a forensic exam­in­a­tion. I am think­ing, indeed hop­ing, that it will guide me down the cor­ridors and open all those locked doors the handles of which I’ve been test­ing in vain for some months now, in the dead of your night. Can your sleep crys­tals tell me even more than the sound of your slum­ber­ing breaths has so far revealed?

Slip. Time. When it arrives. It’s here. Time. Slip. When it leaves. It’s gone. Slip­ping. Into. Time. Late when it’s early. Early when it’s late. Hours. Clocks. Forty-seven minutes past the hour. Whose hour? Yours or mine? Sev­en­teen. Forty-seven. Num­bers. Alarm. Beep. Beep. Sleep. Sleep. Slip. Slip with me. Sleep with me. Why it lingers and why it does what it why and where­fore and how so and is it and could it and no I don’t want to slip under am slip­ping but we haven’t yet no we haven’t because I slept and you slept and they slept and half a world slept while I should have been awake should must if and should and must and must you must sleep I must sleep but want to wake want to snooze want to be want what’s right and what’s wrong want everything and noth­ing and sleep sleep sleep count sheep count sheep crys­tals sleep crys­tals breath­ing breath­ing breath­ing breathe in and out and in and out and in and out and on and on and so.

It’s here. It’s time.

I am fas­cin­ated by sleep. So much so that, right now, I want to sleep forever in the same breath, the same heart­beat and the same instant as I never want to sleep again.

Send me the crys­tals that you dream on. Recor­ded deliv­ery. It will be easier than mail­ing your pil­low, after all.