Melbourne, 3:47 am

I can't sleep at the right times.

The last few nights I have woken up in the small lost hours, peering into the dark, afraid, and not knowing why.

Today I wandered the streets of Melbourne, surrounded by a thousand people, felt lonely. This happens at times. I get to a place and once there don't know what to do. What comes next? 

Hands are poised over the keyboard but nothing happens. Want to delete this because people read it, want to keep it because that was never my intention, shouldn't change things.

I've been trying to draw landscapes. Cityscapes. Making bold lines. No room for hesitation there. 

Once, years ago, someone asked me what I was willing to claim for myself, and I cried. I've been trying to use words like artist and writer without parentheses around them, but it is hard. Clauses and caveats pull at my mouth, the need to minimize lurks nearby, a crocodile in the water. 

Why can't I sleep? 

My mind as the nocturnal section they have in zoos, where the lights are dimmed low and small desert creatures move just out of sight. A background of insects buzzing, a smooth slithering, the puff of air from an owl's wing, behind you and then gone. 

Once daylight comes, finally asleep, it is like being deep in the earth. To wake one must pull oneself through the bedrock, the heavy soil. A daunting task, best to just stay down there a little longer. The night animals are finally quiet, curled up in their burrows beside you, tails tucked over their noses. Take advantage of it.

This sounds worse than it is, the crocodile said.

Its true that it is only temporary, it hasn't been like this until now, just the last few days. It will pass. 

The trees here are a pale cream color with spots of gray and brown where the bark has peeled off. The trunks look like a painting of sun coming down through leaves, dappled spots of shadow and light. That view you get when you look up through forest canopy, but re-imagined on the tree itself. I think of this every time I walk by one, the forest painted on the tree. Have been meaning to write it down for days.

There, its done. 

Good night, good morning.