MAYANK CHUGH
Their guide to colourful sleep in America
Race shapes our sleep, a relationship that has surprising roots deep in our national past.– Benjamin Reiss
He/She/They
00:00
shut all windows shut them
lock and tighten blind them
bring a water bottle by the bedside
0:02
close the white owl
with warm light on the nightstand
the eyes breathe in & out
0:15
slip out of the bed for the windows
check them again lock
with relief sleep in peace
1:20
footsteps of the radiator buzz
ask who’s here? get out
of the bed again check the flat
2:24
sleep run scared in dreams
from white guns men, women, kids,
police, animals captured at last
2:55
wake the wet body in bed
drink the water by the bedside lower
the racing blood escaped
4:00
flip side hear the woodpecker
bark its way inside dead browns
close eyes awake mind
4:30
check the phone light break
the day wake up ready
bed eat run shift 1
A cell and developmental biologist and diversity activist at Harvard Medical School, Mayank is a poet and an artist. He is a selected poet at Through These Realities, a New England art installation 2022 challenging the narrative of mass media that invalidates the experiences of people of colour. His work has appeared or forthcoming in Narrative Northeast and Spry Literary Journal. You can learn more about him at: mayankchugh.org