Parasomnias

Jordan Davidson, United States

1. Mama, I don’t remember you. Just tunnels and crystal boys and glass.

2. It’s so easy to remember glass when I can conjure it from under my fingernails.

3. The first glass I broke he hit me into a tomorrow filled with the haze of broken teeth.

4. Teeth are broken often and grow back faster here, though I’d like to know if you have any remedies for the ache that wallows in an empty pitted crater when your filling is gone.

5. I speak metaphorically, of course.

6. There is nothing here that needs to be filled: I am the low tide filled with salt, I am a storm heavy with lighting and thunder, almost ready to be beaten. I am the swell of rain wailing and letting go.

7. But rain slips so gently from his skin—

8. I can’t capture him with nets or stones, not when he’s like this.

9. He only allows himself to fall between my legs, and while it hurts to catch him, holding him is like being anchored.

10. Like being anchored.

11. These tooth stumps won’t let me spin metaphors anymore.

12. Instead I can only open my throbbing jaw to speak in similes, counting how many times I’ve made the revelation that to you and him I can’t ever be something loved, no, this belatedly burdened body can only be like something loved, never perfect, never whole.

13. Just like you, Mama.

14. Just like you.

Jordan Davidson is a student at Yale University studying Applied Physics and Humanities with a concentration in the History of Witchcraft. She’ll let you know if and when they intersect. This piece belongs to the Fated Verse, a universe she co-created with author Claire Malik. Her work has previously been published in Class Collective, Ice Lolly Review, and right here in Aster Lit. She’s also been the recipient of a YoungArts Award for excellence in writing in 2021 and 2022.