By 4 a.m. everything appears to be settled. The sky has tired of changing color and a sapphire veil hangs off the vapors of the sleepers, blue mixing with green in the aspirations of their breathing. At this hour, the lovers too lie sated (or frustrated) in shallow pools of their mortality. The children have endured their nightmares. The very old have endured the teasing promise of their dreams. At this hour, insomniacs know for certain if tonight sleep will come or will evade them. Those too late for medicine, will watch the shadows on the ceiling, or--sitting at the edge of the bed--stare in familiar resignation at the light the curtains have spilled on the floor. Like phosphorescent milk, the liquid light reflects off the tiles. There is a new reason not to cry. Fear, anxiety, despair, insomnia knows the slow accumulation of pain. The flood of these feelings will overwhelm you. Bitter sweat and sweetened tears: they are the stuff to drown in. A hand appears emergent above the surface. The inky finger stirs the bedazzled heavens. There is lavender lost in the swirling galaxy, lavender blue. There is lavender hiding in the folds of linen, lavender green, dilly, dilly--lavender blue.
"This journal is not a mere literary diversion. The further I progress, reducing to order what my past life suggests, and the more I persist in the rigor of composition--of the chapters, of the sentences, of the book itself--the more do I feel myself hardening in my will to utilize, for virtuous ends, my former hardships. I feel their power." --Jean Genet
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