8X8

TARA TSAPARIS

Three AM in the bathroom on the second floor—
buzzing fluorescents won’t sterilize the black.
I hate the white night, 
so I leave it outside.
In circles, the door—open, close, opened, then closed. 
My Room. 

Not enough room
on the yellow, tiled floor. 
I am closed
and open; white and black. 
I don’t need to choose a side;
only a planet stands between day and night. 

This in between—this midnight—
this is life; this is the world without the bathroom. 
But if I stay inside, 
I can play pretend that there is only this floor. 
All of me is black; 
I can convince myself that your world is closed. 

I am enclosed—
wrapped in night—
where time stops, and black is black, 
and nothing escapes this 8x8 room. 
My life is measured out in tiles, sinks, and floors—
pixilated and quantified inside. 

An exact volume on this side. 
But circles, circles are never closed. 
At dawn, my life pours out the door and down to the ground floor,
scattering like marbles, and day—not night.
My Room is a room, 
and gray uncertainty taints my black. 

I can’t end with the black;
it won’t be on the other side. 
There is no eternal room, 
and it terrifies me that this closed won’t stay closed. 
I am shattered by the dawn that stabs at my night,
and the gray throws me to the floor. 

Now the black is muddled, and the bathroom door is closed. 
The planet moves, and this side is not the night. 
Be terrified of living, but whisper circles, circles, and the terror seeps inky into the floor.