days of dormancy

I’ve been having trouble sleeping and by that I mean I’ve had no trouble sleeping at all. What’s true is the opposite, I’ve been sleeping too much.  

I started using the bedtime feature on my phone when Kay told me over sleeping leads to depression. I think it’s the opposite, I say, depression leads to over sleeping. That night, I find myself tired before the phone tells me it’s time to wind down. 

I shoot for eight, but can’t sleep less than ten. Even if I fall asleep a little after midnight, I should be able to wake a little after 8. Waking up anytime before 9 implies having your life together, but I’ve traded in goodnight kisses for goodnight hits that hold me in the mornings and tell me to ignore everything but the warmth. 

I’ve had Joe Biden’s Inauguration on my mind since the day Trump began claiming he was the true winner and I don’t imagine this was to ever be surprising. His ending was an appropriate one, having already claimed he would not attend, would not participate in a transfer of power long before he sicced his supporters on his opposers. 

I used to romanticize the idea of revolution. I ignored my SAT scores and applied to UC Berkeley only after watching the 1990 documentary Berkeley In The Sixties. I blame myself, my dad, my freshman seminar on Haight-Ashbury for this dream of overturning corruption. Still in my life and experiences thus far, it has been demonstrations and protests, always peaceful, that have given me hope in others.

I planned on being productive on January 6th, but my dad called and told me to turn on the TV. They hadn’t broken in yet, though all I heard was his voice on an opposite coast saying, “People are going to die.” I am reminded once again there has always been this other group that goes way beyond the blue and red our parties favor. This other group shows its beliefs on a lawn decorated with gallows. Their beliefs are ones that so many of us will easily separate as evil from good. Their actions are ones so far from peaceful they are unquestionably deemed acts of terrorism and yet their movement is further indoctrinated by one person with the power to stop it. 

I watched a mask-less man who cared not to take precautions during a pandemic and was instead proud to show his face in the name of bigotry. Photos like the one of this man who waved a confederate flag through the Capitol are the ones that kill the image of revolution I once created. Sights like these are the ones that leave my eyes wide, unable to look beyond the things in our world that make me ungrateful to be a part of it. I do not care to understand the hate or ignorance that portrays an ugly truth these days, so I choose sadness remedied by sleep.

Two weeks later I take the time difference into consideration and sleep with the shades open. I want to witness this change, like I did four years before, and feel something in my heart other than a hopeless beat. I read days before about the youth poet laureate, eager to hear her voice, her words, and watch her perform the simple act I’ve missed for so long - a public reading, an audience. 

I wake first at 7:30 and turn off the alarm that confuses me. I close my eyes again, thinking of the one that is recurring around 8:30 - it’s the one the bedtime feature calls early riser, the one when I first heard it questioned why the morning was suddenly treating me so kindly - I turn that one off too. 

When I do settle on keeping my eyes open, it is 9:30am and I hear cheering, horns honking. It’s almost as though people are banging pots and pans together the way my mom used to let my friends and me do on New Year’s Eve. He’s not our president anymore I think. I’ve missed it, I also think, and still cannot force myself out of bed, I am nowhere near eager to join the rest of the joy, so I close my eyes, again. 

Kay asks if I heard the people running through the street that morning. I pretend I haven’t. It will feel like a rerun if I watch it now. I hear Biden’s speech could have been better, so the only part I sit down to watch is Amanda Gorman’s poem. I find her relatable as we’re both writers in our twenties. I also find myself entirely envious as three of her books are now best-sellers, not to mention she has signed with IMG Models. I’m still narrowing down my choices for a literary agent. And by choices I, of course, mean the ones I have the courage to send a manuscript to. 

She says, “We lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us,” and her words evoke from me a smile. She says, “Never again sow division,” and I notice Youtube’s official statement beneath the video that reads, “Joe Biden is President.” I wonder how many still doubt that. She says, “We've seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it,” and I tell myself not to browse the comments section. 

Maybe I find her relatable because she is the voice that day that speaks and subtly calls a man out on bullshit through metaphor and spoken word, as I so fondly like to do too. I’ve never related to the men I’ve watched swear on Bibles. She wants to run for president in 2036. I don’t know if I get chills reading that because it’s been 54 degrees in LA all week or because in 2036 I will be 41 and hope I’m still not oversleeping through inaugurations like hers. 

I wonder if we ever tire of writing about emptiness? Using the same trite sleep metaphors. At least I haven’t included a dream sequence and this time have avoided using my bed as a direct metaphor. 

These days since the inauguration have left me feeling like I can breathe again. It’s not so much existence, but instead a rage inside of me that has subsided. I no longer feel like I am looking for debate from those in his corner. I’m no longer creating rebuttals for new arguments in my head. I first felt this when his twitter was permanently suspended. That day, it felt like Big Brother’s microphone cord had finally been cut. Other days it was like I was waiting for what he’d do next, which one of us he’d insult, which one of our rights he’d threaten, which one of our government buildings he’d incite violence upon. The only other time I’ve felt this much investment into someone’s twitter account was when Kanye was off the rails rage tweeting from Wyoming or Montana or wherever it is his mysterious ranch is because I’m not as smart as I’d like to think and do confuse those two states.

She asks, “Where can we find light in this never-ending shade,” and even she can’t avoid the sun metaphors. The morning light needs to be invited into my bedroom. The Peace Lily by the window demands its love and attention, but I don’t have a meaningful relationship with warm beings such as the sun. I have affairs, the kind that leaves me guilty for cheating on the shade, the kind that darkness chases away by 5:22 most nights confirming for me why, in these last four years, I’ve preferred the winter.

Negative feelings belong on a dusty shelf next to hangovers and the 45th President. Being a renaissance woman leaves no time for oversleeping and coffee tastes better before 10am. Maybe I won’t tire anytime soon of writing the dark honesty that prevails, but at least when someone asks me if I heard what Donald Trump did that day, or the one before, my answer will consistently be no.  

Victoria Crowe is a writer, editor and founder of You Might Need To Hear This. Originally from Queens, NY, she studied creative writing in San Francisco and has since moved to Los Angeles. She writes both fiction and nonfiction and finds her poetry is usually decent after a bottle of wine. Her work has been published in Harness Magazine, Herstry Blog, and District Lit. She is currently finishing up her second novel and afterwards plans to start her first.