california desert cools off in the evening, but heat lingers in the badly ventilated dorm rooms—
new freshman’s first night. still air, and a too-soft mattress,
and the incessant creaking from the boy who will sleep above him
some arizona kid who eats well and snores loud and dreams heavy.
new freshman supposes that he’ll get used to it. everybody must, after all, two whole semesters
in the place which is now to be his home—
his impermanent residence. ten months is just long enough to grow out of the habit
of his own bedroom, but too short and dry and institutionalized for anything but
the scraggliest of desert roots put down
anyway it doesn’t feel like home now. now it feels like standing fan loud against the
cricket-less stillness outside his window
like unfamiliar bed and door and bathroom, and a heavy double weight
hot air and the solid suffocating irrevocability of what life will now hold for him
he sighs out a too-warm breath and rolls over. the sound of his breathing
is muffled by the fan’s whirring and he does his best to lose himself to the unquiet
brush his mind clear like wiping pine needles from a flat rock in the forest
give up time and place for a green homeland serenity he now might only find in dreams
it doesn’t exactly work. when he drifts off finally it is a fitful sleep
disturbed by snores and sweat and the groaning of the bunk beds, but nevertheless
he passes the hours semi-conscious
eventually sometime past midnight a cool breeze wafts in through the window and he settles deeper behind his eyelids
asleep in skin and boxers and the single sheet he pulls up around his torso
the endless hush of the fan turns in his dreaming to the recent, childhood rainstorms
now only present in his mind.
Jocelyn Olum is a writer, a student, and a circus performer. She grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, where she was awarded both Gold and Silver Keys from the Regional Scholastic Writing Awards for Poetry.
No comments:
Post a Comment