The Crossing
Author’s Note
This poem explores a state between stillness and motion, where the body resists and the mind persists. It reflects on moments of paralysis, physical, emotional, or spiritual and the quiet struggle to reclaim agency. Through sensation, tension, and eventual release, the poem considers what it means to will oneself back into movement and to respond when something, or someone, calls you forward.
As I lay awake on winter’s cold night,
I debate the voices that cackle in my head.
The sheets feel electric,
rubbing against my worn skin.
The moonlight forks the window,
ensnares me,
and causes me to shiver.
A tear falls
and runs down the insides of my tresses.
For I cannot move.
My tendons pay me no mind
and go about their merry little business.
I am incapacitated.
I count the spots on the ceiling,
for the vein of my neck
pops and dances
to the rhythm of the shadows on the wall.
I can feel the pressure
in my lower abdomen
the ache for release.
And still
I just lie there.
I think I smell something,
but I’m not sure.
The hairs in my nostrils
are of a distant border.
My ears are tender
and my tongue heavy.
I am dressed in the softest silk,
the milky white texture
insufferable
against the indifference to colours within.
My locs seem intertwined
with the bedposts.
They trail
like a secret
of the deadliest nature.
My lashes fail to flutter on command.
I am, for lack of a better word,
a bondwoman.
I see a blueprint of a city
from the corner of my eye.
It witnesses a land
I once had been.
The city is patterned
by the constellations.
It bears homage
to the heavens
and the galaxies in between.
A lash moves
because I will it so.
A mouse crawls
and chews on a lock.
At first I squirm,
but then I realise
it chews to release
each and every loc untied
until there is movement
and circulation.
My nape responds in turn,
left to right,
upwards and downwards.
The sheets move.
They seem to come together,
rolling into a ball
and situating themselves
just right at my spine.
I am elevated.
My hands move
because I will it so.
I am sitting now.
I look out the window.
I see a figure
standing in the garden.
She calls out my name.
I stand up
and walk out the room.
__Laurel


A thrilling one with a nice ending!!!