Dear Joan,
Do you ever lie, curled up on your bed, at four in the morning, and think, God, I’m a mess?
I can see you, in the dark, in my mind. Envision, is the better word.
Your eyes are blank, and open. You’re lying on your side, with your short, stiff, blonde-gray bob. You have wrinkles, things that your body wrought.
I think you’re a creature of restraint, although I’ve read that you hosted a party for the Ramones.
I suppose that you don’t actually lie in the dark.
Maybe you sit in chairs.
I don’t think that you write anymore. Not at four, in the morning. Your hands are stiff. The circulation goes out. Old wiring, and pretty, faulty bulbs. You have a frail body, but I don’t think of you as fragile, in any sense.
It’s always too cold, so much so, that you’re used to it, that the clammy iciness of your hands are comforting, to the few who’ve gotten close enough to you, but also to yourself. Mostly, primarily, to yourself.
It’s reassuring, the chill, in the soft of your fingers, and the cup of your hand, that armchairs, presses into your face. Cheekbone. Your jaw, under that flesh. Living bones are fragile, firm. The medial, orbital wall beneath your eyes. Light and capillaries. Knitwork of the gods.
That half of an inhale of air, of night, quiet apartments, and dim lighting. The city lingers in, titian and shadow. The sound of your own slow breath, streaming shallowly, into the bathtub of your lungs. You never take deep, full breaths, but you don’t know why. You try, but it never comes, never feels right.
You don’t sleep, but you breathe, like a sleeper, whose body will sometimes jerk in the night.
You are running, in your stillness, but your body dreams of falling. It’s a betrayal; you know. There is no flight in these bones, so you don’t fight, but you sit.
And sometimes, you lie down. You look at the light, and at your things, and you lie down, because your body wants it. You want it.
The pillows are kind, but you press your cheek against the sheets, and listen, to the bed. Soft creaks, and your heartbeat. Just like in the floor, when you were a young child. Great heights from unsteady tables. The running, back and forth, as fast, as hard as you could, slamming your body into those badly-painted iron fences.
How could sleep ever be enough? How could anything?