Things had gotten terrible again; no one was sleeping and the bar lizards were crawling upwards, their licking was loud against the drapes. I‘d forgotten what you looked like and the air was thin; when I tried to sleep the air was sharp and I could not trick myself into turning off; I pictured my mind as a hallway with ten switches and said now you’ll turn off ten switches, but I could only turn off eight. I turned off nine and ten with difficulty, straining; the switches would clatter and the lights would flicker, and pushing one awoke another. I walked the hallway saying you have turned off the eighth switch, you have turned the seventh switch, back and forth, but the last two switches stood in lit rooms, waiting for you. 

You saw at a sinner in Chicago watching our child, long-suffering; your hair was the color of your jacket and all our colors were red, and every red was the same red. 

No one found you out here because no one checked the greenhouse; 

when you were tied up you didn’t eat, but as soon as I saved you no one cared. We only watched to see Madonna, who wasn’t really sure of you. I was on the smallest pills and they only knocked me out four hours. 

The rest of the time I couldn’t be bothered; I sat up practicing the Mockingbird and the Dancing Buddha and the Mona Lisa Smile, and nothing worked; I whispered fear to the universe and did not excise it; I couldn’t feel my feet. These nights were six hour pockets of slience in which my brain would not stop. I had begun to wonder if a body could just go without sleep, and how many hours I had until I went insane. I was on a feedback loop and the birds called out. I could have told you otherwise but we both know you listened .