I can't sleep. This moment I'm sleepy and the next moment I'm wide awake. I feel like a ghost haunting my room, searching for something, meaning maybe. I can't dream either. It feels empty inside me. I have the colour, the poetry, the movement but it is like I watch myself re-enact my life for an audience of one—me. I envy the dead leaf its flight, the lonely bird its song. I wish I could sing. I wish I could fly.
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What does a leaf torn from the succour of the branch sees as it flies on the borrowed wings of wind? Does it miss home? Does it realize that it has died and is simply a wandering part of something bigger? Does it realize that if it touches the earth, it might never rise again to greet the morning sun?
What if the wind is kind or cruel enough to take it across land, to sail the spray and surf of the sea? Would the brown leaf think itself free, on a journey to exotic places? Will it see it as an adventure? Will it even notice that it is no longer green?
And the birds who travel these distances and spaces will anyone of them, a dove, a thrush, a kite, envy the leaf its mindless movement? Will this bird ask; what manner of bird is this? Will it attempt to, like the leaf, allow its body be guided by the wind? Will it dare loose control?
What if a storm rises from the sea's infinite hunger, grab the leaf and bird by their wings, will it matter that they too are of nature? Will their shared bloodline count on the brutal efficacy of survival? Will the storm allow the mindless traveller some respite? Will it question the bird—a sparrow, an eagle, a crow—daring to be among the elements?
What if the storm is kind and sets them on the other side of the world, detritus among them, immigrants on a foreign shore. Will the gods of winter and summer look at the leaf in kindness. Will they be gentle upon it, blow frost into its young old bones, crack its ribs until it curls in distrust? Will the bird thrill a song among other birds—the bluejays, the hawks, the vultures? Will it matter that they all have plummes? Will it matter that it can sing? Will they treat it any better than the brown leaf? Will any god hear?
I have wandered in my waking from the real to the imagined. It is as close to dreaming as I can get. It is dealer than my back on the bed, the ceiling fan revolving over my head. It is morning and I have not slept. Maybe I am sleeping now. Maybe when I think I have woken up, it is then I sleep and everything that happens—joy and pain—is but a dream.
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**The image was created on Canva**
**Always,
Osahon (warpedpoetic)**