Reading Day 8
SleepES #lyricalessay, #object, #subject, #animate, #communication, #codependence
You sit in a subtle state of stillness, without dreaming, as you sleep. You are absorbing the environment around you, watching us from afar as we sit on the sofa, watching an apocalypse movie. You sleep with your eyes open, and with your eyes open, to me, your sleep seems instead an act of waiting. Sleep as suspended death. For you are not dead, like the others may say you are. You are alive and waiting. When I do not need you I do not regard you as I should. Although I see you from the corner of my eye as I traverse the room, you are merely an ornament to me as you sleep. You are dead, for when we speak of objects we will often describe them as inanimate and lifeless. In their inability to move without our action – their continued silence and incommunicability with us – we rarely perceive them as alive. But are you ever truly dead? No, to me you are animate. As I sit here writing, I can see you. Your eyes point in two directions and one of them is staring at me. I know you want me to use you. I know you want me to hold you. I know they need water from your beak. You are silent but you are watching me as you sleep. Just like the bird you represent you seem to sleep with half your mind, for a flamingo, whilst sleeping on one leg, will shift its weight to the other without waking; the other half of its brain stays awake so as not to lose balance. In this state of sleep, I feel you are near. You are trying to move me to grab you and use you. To wake you. Without a voice I can understand, we are left to communicate with each other through touch, and through our actions.
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