Winter Sleep Jasmeen Siddiqui “Star light, star bright...” I was eleven and looking out the window of my parents’ van again, “Only star I see tonight.” Sucked back into my quiet yard as a van rumbles by a street over. I wish to be with you, companions in the spinning sky. I imagined how fast I was moving still in my night covered corner— I thought about how night isn’t really night, it just is. Space. Infinity. Without light. We just happen to be lucky enough to be close to a star. As the sky slowly shifted, my star was sucked behind my house... I wished on an airplane. I wished to be with it, though, and I didn’t change my wish. To be up and away— but away isn’t really away unless you consider this place a place. Then you’re just going, not away, just going. The glow of the moon leaks onto its dragging veil and I pull my own smoky threads out of my lungs and weave them through the light so it won’t shine too brightly on me. The smooth, thick blanket of snow covers the ground in front of me and I feel my shoulders sink. It’s so perfect, not a crease or a fold in its sheets, and a promise of a day’s end. I unzip, the air pouring into my chest, swirling around my neck. My coat collapses around my heavy black boots. I kick them off and let the crunch press between the knit of my socks. The grip of my jeans unwillingly crumples, tugging at my ankles with concern. My fingers move at a pace too slow for the workings of a button so they curl around my collar and pop, pop, pop the black spots off of me. The freeze curves around my limbs like the sky around the earth, and I am so tired. In front of me lies a royal sized bed and I am its Queen so I stride into its centre, slow, smooth, and I can already feel its warm embrace. I slurp in some space and sigh it out from my knees, to my hips, to my shoulders, to my cheeks. Sunken in my soft, white bed, the colour finally fades and I can hear my breath echo back to me off of my frozen silhouette. Everything is quiet except for the spinning sky. I close my eyes and feel everything tighten, then release.
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