S. LIAM SPRADLIN - NIGHT LIGHT

S. Liam Spradlin writes poetry and nonfiction. He has been published in the 2017 annual edition of The Sequoyah Review, a literary journal published by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he is currently majoring in Sociology. He lives in Fort Oglethorpe, GA. You may contact S. Liam via Facebook at Facebook/shan.spradlin. 

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                                              Night Light
 

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Hard shadows against the off-white walls
Lamp Light obstructing my peripheral
Eyes so tired the empty cloth
of a computer screen seems numb.
Disorganized letters scattered in unfamiliar
patterns across my fingertips.
Somehow, I am to make sense of it all
To find the letters, the order, the movement
That bleeds life into the motionless words
covering my bedroom wall.
My mind turns over itself like a
coin-operated dryer while I walk.
The spirit I seek is one street over
and the wind-chill is late December.
I stand behind a man in the liquor store.
Ridged veins grasp at the neck
of hard-hitting vodka.
I look down at my own tattoos
but all I can feel are the scars.
The pain of a needle carving its way
under the skin is therapy.
The point of my pen
splitting the dead pores
of compressed bark is therapy.
I have survived your lies
I have seen through the mirage.
I named the desert in your honor.
My strength
is more than you can deny.
My eyelashes brush against a cold pillow.
The rhythm of my heartbeat
will bring me sleep. And I
no longer live in your shadow.