slow medium by jane matchak

There are cold nights where I walk for hours. I walk through Chinatown or to the ocean or anywhere else where the best parts are below the surface. I’m searching for places that never go to sleep, but if need be, can I sleep in your room? Have I told you that you are my favorite thing / you are the best ever / I could love you forever? I remember your mouth having the ghost of a smile, like a spirit I could never kill. I’m moving my finger along a valley on your back that I’m the first to explore, like there was no one before, I’ve never cared more.

I’ll be heaven’s first pariah, naked and unashamed

maybe we’ll be perfect and vapid and the world will take care of you

and I can finally go to sleep.

I haven’t always been this tired, my eyes are so heavy / they cradle purple moons underneath them, hanging soft and silent. My moons are quietly having an affair with the sun, so in theory, love is heliocentric. I’m spinning slender ellipses around you as Selene pulls her moon chariot through the sky. This is different from a honeymoon, there is no time for romance here, I’ll sleep until noon in this empty room, reaching for the parts of you that I cannot see

and maybe that’s perfect. You are a beautiful refraction, for example, the moonlight dancing on the ocean. We’ll be swallowed by the sea. Are you afraid of anything? There is nothing to fear, I think beneath the waves, the floor is made of linoleum

or tile

or electricity

or static.