3 Poems by Caitlin O'Halloran

Insomnia

My frequent inability to sleep
feels like more proof that I’m defective.
Human beings all sleep.
Without it they turn mad,
start seeing things that aren’t there,
hearing things no one else can hear.

Even animals sleep.
My dog, lying between my feet,
her snout resting just above my ankle,
is squeaking softly in her sleep.

When I do sleep, it’s broken, jagged patterns,
stopping and starting, like the gears on the manual car
I tried to drive, before my father gave up on teaching me.
I flicker in and out of consciousness, like a dying lightbulb.
Or perhaps like a dog in the doorway
who can’t decide if it wants to go out or in.

I’ve tried all the things they tell you to do when you can’t sleep.
I’ve tried meditation and drinking warm milk.
I’ve tried cognitive shuffling, this thing I read about online,
where you think of a word,
then take the last letter of that word
then think of a word that begins with that.

Apple is the first that comes to mind,
then Elephant, Tiger, Resting,
Great, Terrible, Everything,
each word rising and falling,
but never managing to help me fall asleep.


Skipping Stones

My father shows me how to skip a stone
and make it leap a dozen times
across the ocean’s waves.

Crouch down low
and wait until the moment
just before the water swells.
Cast it in perfect parallel
to ensure it reaches its potential.

The other trick, he says,
is to find the flattest, thinnest stone,
but not so big
that it’s weighed down
by its own body.


This Morning, the Sky

This morning, the sky dons an indigo dress
and wraps an umber shawl around her shoulders.
She blushes a pleasant pink,
when she greets her love, the sun, again.

She spends these early hours sitting on her front porch
with a light blue blanket laid across her lap,
gazing down at the people below.

There, she spots a man pressing the crosswalk button
over and over, as if he could convince the light to hurry up.

At noon, she watches workers carrying
foil wrapped lunches back to stark office buildings
with rows of windows and lobbies
filled with uncomfortable chairs.

She flinches at the sound of a cyclist
slamming his hand on the hood of a car
that drove a bit too close,
and lines of cars are stuck in traffic,
everyone sandwiched in between.

As evening comes, the sky grows tired,
turning a darker blue, and weary workers
wait for buses under awnings of metal and glass.

When day is done, the sky
puts on her black dressing gown
and turns in for the night.
Instead of counting sheep,
she counts the stars,
and gently falls asleep.

Caitlin O’Halloran is a biracial Filipino-American writer living in Rochester, New York. Her poetry has been published in literary magazines, including ONE ART, confetti, Third Wednesday, The Basilisk Tree, and FERAL: A Journal of Poetry & Art.

Photography by Caitlin O’Halloran