Blank Canvas

I sleep so I can see you, and I hate to wait so long.

- Gigi Perez (Sailor Song)

Before me is a blank canvas. I stare at that unnatural, jarring white, oblivious and single minded, until my eyes unfocus. A paradox, I know. It’s not like I’m missing out on any of the finer details. I think I can hear something - a sound like a sigh, or a waterfall. An exhaust fan? Yes, there is a fog about in my mind. 

So I walk.

A woman is lying on a table. No, she is on the floor. Her flesh is languid and riddled with marks; but those who kneel around her seem to contemplate it in ecstasy, as if waiting to feast. No, too grotesque. The woman fades away.

I follow the mist. 

There must be something here - there cannot be nothing, for nothing cannot contain colour, or me. Ah. Forgive me. White is not a colour. They call it an optical illusion, wavelengths and whatnot. 

I follow the mist.

Suddenly trees, their branches long and bony, cradling their sparse foliage above my head. If I were to take a knife to their barks, no green would reveal the presence of life. They are as dead and blanched as broken elephant tusks - it surprises me that I can distinguish them from their cousin background. 

A dark bell tower awaits me - finally, something besides white! It seems to crane its head towards me, with strings of weeping bells that trickle out of its broken frame, surrendering to gravity and chiming like tears. No, too depressing. Nothing good awaits me at its top. 

We have made some progress, I comfort myself. Perhaps tonight there will be colours. 

Indeed, I see a familiar town in the distance and quicken my step to reach it. Lollipops sprout out of the ground to greet me, and the houses are made of coloured glass and spun sugar. Pieces of childhood - candy, discarded toys, the air thick and cloying with that sense of loss and whining nostalgia. Still, it means no harm, and I will feel safe and guarded in its realm. 

But no, I seek something more tonight. As if sensing my rejection, the houses turn cold and hostile. They melt to the ground in coloured puddles, forming snarling faces that howl as they slither away. I am alone again, but not in stark, punishing white anymore. 

It has become so dark. So very dark. 

The thing is hushed as it approaches. It is sly, hidden in the smoky mist, which now draws up around me in tall spurts as if to entrap me. I must run, but my feet are frozen solid. That isn’t a metaphor. The ground has quite literally turned to ice. I cannot cry - if I do, the tears will meld my eyelids shut as they freeze. Please make it stop.

So I do. 

I must really be in my feels tonight, I had almost forgotten who is in control. Slink back to your shadows, beast, I am not a child you can play with anymore. 

The triumph is short-lived. As I continue on my weary path, the tepid tornado in my mind only grows. Shall I dream of nothing tonight, after all? There is no tormentor now but myself. Doom, depression, damnation-

You! 

What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you in a long time.

‘It’s always nice to see you.’

You can’t answer me, of course you can’t. But you hold out your arms anyway. This will only bring me hurt, I know, but I can’t help but fall into you. And then, like always, the world is coloured again. 

Pastel shades of pink and yellow race each other to the outer limits of the sky, curdling into lemon and rose as they finally deign to touch earth again. We have come to sunset. The ochre dyes your skin red and orange, my hands have turned to honey. The fog has gone. My canvas is coloured.

‘My love. My sweet.’

Is a kiss really too much to ask for? 

My lips reach for you in vain - like cotton candy, you have already turned to air by the time we touch. 

Yes, you truly are like sugar. You always leave a sour taste in my mouth afterwards.

Looking

Stimulus: “I am out with lanterns looking for myself” - Emily Dickinson 

I am out with lanterns looking for myself.

I am looking in my home, 

where the child I once was is gone.

I am looking in my bed,

where most of my tears have been shed.

I am looking in my school, 

where my obedience grew, following order and rules.

I am not there.

And so,

I am out with lanterns looking for myself.

I am looking in my brain,

full of bad decisions, and, yet, where my logic reigns.

I am looking in my face,

beautiful I am told, but such a trait will fade.

I am looking in my waist,

most likely the one thing I have most traced. 

I am not there either.

And so,

I am out with lanterns looking for myself.

I am looking in the sun,

full of the joy I always wished to become.

I am looking in the trees,

eternal and strong, like all humanity yearns to be.

I am looking in the water,

dancing freer than I ever have been, no one’s muse, no one’s love, no one’s daughter.

But, alas, I am nowhere to be found.

And so,

I am out with lanterns looking for myself.

As the sun begins to rise and my lanterns to dull, 

I realise I am looking at it all wrong:

I am not in the places I have lived, the body I possess or the land that I love;

I am not somewhere to be found, revealed by the light I shine above.

I am where only I can see.

And so,

I am not out with lanterns looking for myself;

I am looking in my soul,

where the child I thought gone rules with chaos and a joy untold.

I am looking in my soul,

where wistfulness never fades and love never grows old.

I am looking in my soul,

where I have been all along, sitting, cross-legged, waiting for me to come home. 

Bed

A few years ago, I was turned into a piece of furniture. Perhaps I’m oversharing. There is no other way to put it and I’d rather get straight to the point instead of dilly dallying in pointless introductions. In fact, what would there be to introduce? I don’t remember my name. Bed. I am a bed. 

I do not know my age, or recollect anything from my past. My humanity is the one thing I am certain of, as sure as you are of your foot or hand. 

Contrary to what one might imagine, being a bed isn’t quite so bad. There is no work, for one. No rent, no schooling, no taxes. Movement is difficult, I’ll grant you that, but who needs legs when you can do nothing all day? I’ve basically been given for free what most people spend their entire lives trying and failing to accomplish. 

You might linger on lifespan. A bed is only good for so long, you might say. Even the best of the lot must be replaced after a few decades. Personally, living a short, blissful existence seems preferable to me than a stretched period of misery. 

It took some time getting used to, but I have grown quite fond of my bed body. There is no pimply adolescence or sagging skin when you are made of wood; indeed, I am constant like the ticking of your clock. Turn and observe a bed - any bed - and you will notice its strength. I am sturdy: my four legs are firmly planted in the floor, leaving rounded, unerasable marks in the carpet. I only betray my weakness when you clamber onto me, and hear the creaking sound of my springs, akin to an old man’s wheeze. 

That’s not to say I am the only person who’s found themselves in this peculiar predicament. Over my many years in this household, I have encountered several other pieces of living furniture, and quite a collection of inanimate objects. Saucy perfume bottles, grim chairs, yawning pillows, even a clockwork mouse. Unfortunate fellow - it's not an easy life to lead when you’re stranded in a house with a vicious tomcat. 

They say houses are alive if you listen closely enough - and well, they’re not wrong.

Perhaps the objects we have been turned to reflect our personalities? Could this transformation be a dubious form of reincarnation? All the others I’ve spoken to certainly can’t remember anything past their favourite colour. 

I am not unhappy in my role. Beds themselves take many different shapes and forms. And yet, it is their concept that transcends history.

Since the dawn of humankind, man has looked for comfort in his pain. The animal who learns he is alive, who is conscious of his limits and of his suffering, is not a happy one. It is a state we have yet to cure to this day. And if we put aside peers, air, food and water - what do we really need? Shelter. A cave is a bed. A mat of reeds is a bed. A stone alcove is a bed. What matters is whether we trust them to host our tangled limbs in safety for a night.

A bed is a very intimate place to be. Love affairs aside, it is where you are your smallest self. Battered and bruised, it is in my arms that you rest. From earliest childhood, you have learned to be vulnerable with me. I have been a warm crib, a sleeping bag, a water bed in a hotel room, your lifelong companion in your room. Even when you leave home, I will continue to follow you - as we twist and turn on our weary path - sometimes landing on a university cot, a stranger’s sofa, or even, in desperate cases, a park bench. You will always find solace in the places you choose to trust. 

The girl who sleeps with me shares a part of herself no one else sees - her nights. I receive her tears, her sweat, her nightmares. In me she cocoons herself in warm sheets and rhythmic breathing, dreaming of another life.

So perhaps I am not wrong in saying I am human. I am certainly human enough to be your friend. I hold you, I rock you. 

Because really, there never was any bed. It was just you. You and the meaning you chose to give me.