Sun shadows

There are shadows, fluttering in the space on back of my eyelids. I know it is just sunlight. Sunlight and leaves. But I want to pretend it is white gulls pasted into the darkness. A darkness that pulses, like the wind, sending the gulls swimming into my ears, where they squawk and trill.

(I think I open my eyes for a minute; I see my own lashes and ribs of blue sky, but then I am back behind skin.)

In movies they always try to recreate the feeling of what it’s like behind closed lids, but there’s nothing quite like it. It can’t be reproduced, it’s like trying to draw something that lives on the corner of your vision. It’s elusive. The darkness is warm, red and squirming, it’s alive with sun shadows and illusions. It can’t be replicated.