In a Hotel Room

Part I

In Savannah

Darker than the backs of my eyelids

Cool air blowing from a window unit

Soft hum

Song of nighttime

Sound of my sleepless nights

Window fogs

Humidity clashes with the cool black atmosphere of this room

Streetlights in the parking lot reach orange fingers through the curtains

Don't let me look out

I want out so bad my skin crawls but

I want to stay here forever and ever—

Amen.

Part II

Satie's Gymnopédie dances on motes of dust

Notes mingle with beams of sun

Over the years the dust lays down in sheets over my piano

I remember

When I let music use my hands to escape into the world

Fingers slowly twisting unnaturally from stretching over the keys

Head cocked to the side

I translate these things

Music into words—words into music—

Part III

I pluck the strings

Of harps and hearts

I trace the lines

Of palms and time

I flow through the gaps

Between leaves and memories

Sunlight burns through me

Rustling, an empty hot breeze

I carry things away

They drift through my hands

Together we dance

Toes buried in the sand

Part IV

Tap tap tap she taps on the keys

The typewriter dings as she finishes the page

A writer and her thoughts, both elusive and abstract

She molds them into shape from light until black

She slips into bed between the crisp white sheets

Cool air blowing from the window unit

In a pitch black room with no sound but a soft hum

Our writer sees the worlds that are yet to come.