FOUR-FIFTY A.M.

Close your eyes. See the
blue void swell and yowl. Feel the infinitely dense marble sit
central, though felled to rest. Your chest caves in.
A sunken stalagmite of sour snot, streaming like sweat. Hell.
Now, open again.
Align the fractals,
brittle-boned behemoth. Beat your sternum before the well breaks.
Bring its bones back with you, don’t chip at mine.
Sell me your souled remains. Remainder the self, fading figure.
Your spine may be spent.

I’m not blue, I swear.
I feel it though, like a fever dream free for all. Velvet eel
whispering. Speak up and see it clearly.
See me for what I am, not who you think. Think of it. I just…
I feel so heavy.
Free your soul, little one.
Taste rust breaking down. Oxidize the still-switching frames and wish,
wish for once that your penny carries weight.
How funny you draw marvels of mind, then sleep to wring them dry.
Wake up, my ocean.

 

 

 

 

 

BUOYANCY

You know that moment when you’re
falling asleep and life reruns, now out of
sequence, on the backs of your eyes?
I know I’m the playwright.

You know that feeling when a luckily
delightful after-moment resembles the
hazy idea of a substance settling in?
I know how it hurts to stir from a slur.

You know how when you speak in past-
tense about lingering things, they rear
teeth again and chew right through?
Through it all, I know bone decays too.

You know that feeling when you’re
running so fast you’ve lost track of the last
thought to have not had an asterisk?
I know you don’t have to run from me.

So, you know then why your feet don’t tire,
why your soles don’t bend like the swards that
support your effortlessly shifting mass?
I know I rest more than I step.

Do you ever hear someone else’s thoughts
spill off your tongue? Can you tell them
apart from your own indistinct voice?
I know my voice from yours.

You know, sometimes you just need to
exhale in questions. You know I’ll always be
there to walk you through it, step-by-step.
I know we’ll figure it out together.

You know, time’s not as long as it seems. Today
will always be yesterday tomorrow. You know the
questions will end and you’ll have time to breathe.
I know things that break, but no broken things.

You know that moment when you’re falling asleep,
the world’s seemingly broken apart in shadows and
you’re too vulnerable to let the structure reestablish?
Just know that some puzzles self-assemble in the dark.

 

 

 

 

 

TOMORROW

To those wandering widows of Fall,
dawning stars whose static eyes suspend before time.
Whose gaze points in all directions,
but cannot behold mine?
A wedge in alignment –
lines in the sediment washing away,
as one side leaves the other
for today.

Tomorrow

separates this moment from the next,
when here is now and where was then.
I hear them – little reminders of
here & there –
but this moment speaks the clearest.
Of what was, and, at once,
all that’s yet to be.

Tomorrow
is a series of mirrors & endless reflection.
Yester resembles to, but the morrow I haven’t undressed.
The names I’ve yet to speak,
the sun that’s yet to stir me from the
somethings of my sleep.
Tomorrow is a thought I’ve yet to share.
They brighten the night, those widows of stars suspended in time.
Whether here and now or there and then,
they all precede
tomorrow.

This lit cigarette will cease to burn.
Sallow of stature and stooped under shadow,
these roots are still as a stutter. Stirring
seasons breathe in me the need to burn another.
Remnants of reverie, reverence for
tomorrow, o’morrow.

In their mourning, the sun should reappear
on the crest of yesterday gazing on.
Today is a recycled breath, a conversation
spoken in echoes, reverberant blood and basslines.
Spoken, yet recited.
Recycled, and
reunited.

Tomorrow
speaks to me too. By the wisp of a wish or a
fistful of stones, in search of a pearl
let slip to the drift.
Of whispering kisses or fish on the fly,
these dreams are existence.
I write with the wind tonight
thinking of you,
tomorrow.

Gavin Duncan is a graduating senior at SUNY ESF with a major in Environmental Studies and a minor in Environmental Writing and Rhetoric. He is also one of seven editors who helped bring this issue to light. Before he graduates, he plans on publishing his book titled “Sleepwalking,” a somnambulant journey into the fissures of awakening. After graduating, he plans to assist students in need of tutoring and people seeking mentorship. Instagram: @gavinjduncan