Falling in sleep

You breathe so fast when you’re falling asleep. Inhales complement phantom creaks, the sounds of settling foundation and doors knocking in frames
From the ceiling fan breeze.

Outside, sprinklers kick on and the noise filters in through the screen.
Water mixes your exhales with gales and rustling and nocturnal cars heard on the street.

From our bedroom, I can see the neighbors’ porch light cut by shivering leaves dipping in fluorescent rays. I hear the wind push through
With a summer-like ease and imagine the moonlight finding a home in the eaves.

When your fingers find mine in the dark, I’m back here: atop tousled bed sheets that don’t fit the mattress, amidst dirty clothes I haven’t picked up yet
Listening to inhales and exhales that have slowed, and emanate.

Forever feels like sweaty arms wrapped around oversized t-shirts on midsummer nights. The window is open; the fan, circling.
It sounds like sprinklers filtered through the dusty screen and the rustling of nearby leaves mixed with ceiling creaks: like peace.

You breathe so fast when you’re falling asleep.
I want to shake your shoulder and ask for your dreams. But
On nights like these — you and the rustling and the creaking beams — 

It all sounds like a song you sing to me while I’m falling asleep.

Stay gold,
Sabrina