dawn, are you with me?
by Mae S. Ladle
Sleeping is to flirt with death. Have a little taste. Eight hours, inert, brain slowly drying up, the water that makes up me is condensing on the cool window. Sometimes, when I’m forcing my eyes open, it’s the first thing I see, and my parched throat asks me to lick it off the glass. Reclaim what’s mine. I’m disgusted, I’m mesmerized. Desires are wiped clean of societal taboos in small hours. In the liminal spaces, the in-between times, between waking and sleeping and sleeping and waking, between sobriety and inebriation; the (??? and the ???). My stomach is an empty fist, my blood runs thick and sluggish. I can taste the antithesis of the sugar I need on my tongue, a film of bitterness that makes me want to turn my mouth outside in. I’ve used up all the oxygen in the room. The weight of my own waste - the sweat, saliva, sleep - hot and heavy on my face; if I dragged my hand through the space above me, could I slice it like a solid?
Sleeping is a little surrender. I’ve cast off my armour and I flirt with death. Laying here now, I think, when does the day come where I’m too far gone? When I’ve been squeezed dry, when there is no more life in the air to drink in? And I surrender it all. No more teasing, you can have me.
Another day, and another triumph for my body. I roll my feet to the ground. A shock of cold through my body. I reconcile with every limb. Still there. Mine again. The strange toenail on my pinky toe and the heat of the infection around my new earring. Aching neck, legs so weak they cry when I ask them to work. My own legs are weeping, no part of me is safe from the seductive song of sleep.
I’m a doctor every morning. I open windows wide, I introduce liquids into my stomach, my blood, my cells. I feel the turgid weight of my brain blooming to life, it starts feeding me thoughts. Thoughts drown out what I see and feel. I’m crumbling granola over sour greek yogurt. I’m spoon-feeding it to myself as I would to a baby, tiny bite by bite. Take your medicine. You’ve journeyed almost all the way down to the underworld, take it easy.
I’m taking my bowl to the sink, actions running a little smoother now, there’s grease between the rusted machine parts now, oil slick, there’s coal in the engine now, a gentle fire now kindled and - my toe hits the edge of my standing shelf. I inhale sharply, choke on air. The bowl, still sticky with milky oaty residue, smashed into a hundred pieces on the floor. I’m frozen by the pain shooting through my foot and up my shin; the jolt that makes my breakfast turn over in my stomach. My eyes fixed upon one point, perceive every bit of porcelain skid across the floor and disappear beneath shelves, sofa, chairs. The primary pain abates as quickly as it came, replaced by a dull, red ache. My chest has gone very heavy, my organs have discovered gravity, gravity has discovered me. I’m so heavy, and I’m shaking too now, I know I’m about to cry. I tie ropes about myself, this is composure, tie knots upon knots, all the while no muscle moves, eyes fixed still a little to the left of the heap of broken bowl. The red trickle of strawberry compote. Deep, deep breaths, deep breaths to keep it all inside, to keep my organs from slipping out my cracks and pooling embarrassingly on the floor with the mess. I stutter back into action, one, two, three steps, barefoot on the floor, and then I’m curled back up in my bed. I’m an earthquake, who do I think I am? A god, to control a force of nature? And all the while my brain, my brain now fed on food and water and air, it laughs at how pathetic this is. Stubbed your toe, now you are a disappointment on an unmade bed. Your composure so fragile it was unmade by the foot of a shelf
***
I wake before my alarm. Four minutes. A thrill runs through me, from the back of my throat, down each shoulder, and into my tailbone. And electric shock that brings my legs to life. The knowledge: I woke in the correct segment of my sleep cycle. The first win of the day, in my breath. My body, soft and warm, comfortable but already tingling. I’m thinking about the overnight oats with the fresh strawberry compote waiting for me in the fridge. A gift from my past self. How kind of her, how kind of me. I come to my feet. I relish the clean freshness of my daydress against my sleepy skin. I chase the party of flavours out my mouth with green toothpaste and a purple toothbrush. Untangle and tidy my hair. Every action a plate of armour, a chainmail shirt, a gambeson tied neatly in bows at the front. There’s little that can harm me so well prepared.
I bring my breakfast to the table; kick my foot hard against the shelf. A firework of pain, fizzing under my skin, up my nerves. My mind brightens to white for a second, two, a single experience, that contact point, foot to wood, consumes my awareness so completely. A sickening sort of bliss. My hand clenches around the ceramic, dipping into the cool oats.
And it’s over. I exhale long, deep. Give the shelf a bemused smile - so you’re awake too now?
The window opened wide, and I perch upon the windowsill like an overgrown owl, tasting each spoonful of oats like a special treat. Silky, buttery almost, nutty. Sweet compote a clear bell on my tongue. The rain shivers down the gutters and disappears into the gravel sludge. Smell of cold, something burnt, something asleep now awoken - the hortensia bushes, or the aspen tree with the decaying skirt of leaves? This fragrance - the cigarette of the pink lunged citizen. The clouds gauze the sky in graphite grey. Shaded in with a deft pencil, given depth by the unsure sun somewhere high above where birds fly to evade the downpour. I breathe in deep - and exhale, cold and clear. My eyelids flutter. To wake is to flirt with life.
BIO: Mae S. Ladle is a writer and poet currently residing in Germany. She is the winner of the 2025 "Canne al vento" International Literary Prize. She can be reached on Instagram @mae.s.ladle