Do Not Disturb
writings on insomnia

“The Dream Night, the essence of night, does not let us sleep.

In the night no refuge is to be found in sleep.”

- Maurice Blanchot, “Sleep, Night” The Space of Literature

CONTENTS

Introduction

S. SUMAN & F. KURTER

confession - black page

SUNNY ZHENG-HERB

If

ALICIA TEBEAU-SHERRY

Nothing is Happening

Tossing and Turning

The Night Storm

LUCKY STIFF

the house alive

wishbone poem

woodpecker

RAPHAEL KRASNOW

I try not to masturbate while I’m single

I’d like to hate myself in the morning

just as phony as it can be

REYHAN JONES

1,001

STACY SEILER

Forms in the Half Light

FERNANDO ZELAYA

Reflections on dancing partly written at the Lightning Field on September 22, 2024

LU GILLESPIE

Shadows from the Moonlight

Every Time I Faint

HALLIE LEDERER

Sonnet for Winter

Steezy Breezy

Claire de Lune

Contributors

Introduction

Lying in the dark - sleep eludes - again. Night after night after night our displaced

bodies and minds wander in a perpetual limbo - between dreaming and

wakefulness - between night and day - between existence and death.

“How did you sleep?” This seemingly innocent question is fraught with

expectations, accusations and failure of all kinds.

“But who can sleep with the broken state of the world today?”, you say. Not many

of us, it seems. What if, we wondered, we welcomed the nightly specter of

restlessness into our beds, resisting the impulse to reject it, as sleep has rejected

us?

If so many of us are awake at night, where do the contested spaces of

insomnia take us? What and where are the possibilities within fragmented

thinking and the impossibility of sleep for the pursuit of more than a singular desire

to sleep? Curious, we put out a call for texts that take Insomnia as a source,

inspiration, obsession, or flirtation.

Here in these suspended states of uncertainty, the Moon, a presence who taunts,

does loom large, as well as her attendants - Lust and Desire. Familiar places and

memories are now suspect, as are we. In the night, memory, forgetting, mourning,

and grief can run in parallel with longing and desire.

Here in these solitary spaces we fear the impossibility of accounting for another -

becoming empathetic - bound to another - only in our dreams. Sleep - its absence -

and yours - tugs, wondering: where, and how, can I join you?

If every waking is a loss, the writers in Do Not Disturb, use sleeplessness as a

creative state to defy our inability to forget. We invite you to turn on the light (you

aren’t sleeping after all) and perhaps find some measure of solidarity in these

texts.

Good night,

Snake House

S. SUMAN and F. KURTER

confession - black page

Once the night stretched across the earth.

The moon hung low over the water, nearly touching the surface.

I remember the woman who was here, lost her memory,

did not know who she was, where she had been, or what she had done.

The night stretches across the room.

The moon is low, nearly touching my face. Only it isn’t the moon,

it’s Morpheus disguised as a woman.

“What’s your relationship with insomnia?”, she asks.

“A close one.” I answer.

“Would you describe it as one between lovers? Enemies?” she whispers,

pinning me to the bed.

“Like a battlefield.” I whisper back.

SUNNY ZHENG-HERB

If

She likes to slink into my bedroom

The same question dripping from her lips

Hushed words coiling in my ear

Cutpurse fingers tracing my shoulder

What if?

What if?

What

if?

What if I can not sleep tonight?

If I entertain this question,

then I will not sleep.

I will not sleep if this question comes to me.

Even if I try to unthink this question,

it is already too late.

Sleep has departed from tonight, if not also from tomorrow.

If only I had not thought this question.

She waits for my capitulation

Gingerly perched at the corner of the bed

Head tilted, eyes gleaming

A languid curl on the edges of her mouth

What if?

What if?

What

if?

She is an eager companion

Rapacious for my clumsy hands

My wondering

stuttering

thoughts

My feeble

frustrated

tears

My choking rage

in the face of my own impotence.

I cannot unthink the question

What if I can not sleep tonight?

She springs up as I stumble to the bathroom

for the third time

Tiptoes across the hallway with me

Makes room for me on the flaking leather couch

Shoots me a knowing glance as I sit down.

Then come the words

I do not speak in the glare of day

Whispers that I have held at bay

Tightly wound threads of unresolved conversations

unresolved dissensions

unresolved postulations

unravel in the night

She holds me as I weave

Fragments and splinters and what was

Into tapestries that enjoin

What if?

What if?

What

if?

I find myself again

here in the night.

Come morning,

I will wince at the roar of my roommate’s nutribullet

and I will sink

Down into the dreams I should have dreamed

in the darkness

in the quiet

and I will float

Through each interaction and each obligation and each production

of the day

I will not return fully to myself

until I lay in bed at night.

And, once again, she slinks in

to ask

What if?

What if?

What

if?

ALICIA TEBEAU-SHERRY

Nothing is Happening to Me

To really feel nothing is when your eyes

begin to blur your body into a banana peeling

into bed half-alive. Sleep refuses to touch you,

so your vision puzzles someone painted like you,

kisses three different boys, & gawks at running

legs that have become bird-like. Fluted & stringed

music replays until it is dull. Life is far away.

Tossing & Turning: An Elegy

She laid down a wave’s

mouth, tiring over

her hips, , forehead,

she decided then this color

blue a yawn. The wave

a washing thing ,

, replaced

the sand & muck already

pocketed in her

with more of it . She a deposit,

a wave, &

again, at least the water was cool & salty.

The Night Storm

Above my head, thunder combs my hair. On pillows, wrapped like Earth’s layers,

my shoulders shift towards the window beside me. The rain is doing

what it does & the lightning has no interest in sticking around. My legs are friction &

I’m grinning because storms are a sour candy—you don’t have them

as often anymore, but an excuse to be still & then overtaken is too appealing to pass up.

I let my ears jump and fingers panic, still grinning from something.

LUCKY STIFF

the house alive

The radiator ticking is the

sound of an anxiety attack

waiting to happen.

The headlights on the ceiling

are harbingers,

flashlights of an angry mob.

I smell your mother’s body on the

sheets of the spare bedroom.

In the morning your shower screams,

its metal mouth wide and streaming.

I open mine to drown.

I know how it feels.

wishbone poem

Here’s what’s been going on:

the dog ate all my wishbones.

I don’t know, do I have

Any wishes left?

It’s 5 in the morning and the sun hasn’t quite shown

Let’s fuck to one of your playlists then pretend that we’re alone

woodpecker

I wake up in the attic and start reading about the atomic bomb.

You lived here once, also invited

Your lover, Chaos, to climb into your bed.

I roll over, gasping, at first light; see

the tree outside your window is full of holes.

RAPHAEL KRASNOW

I try not to masturbate while I’m single

it all felt so real

until after we came

when she asked to smoke a cigarette

I woke up then

the only tobacco she ever really enjoyed was on my breath

dreams that tempt you to suckle at their teat are of a malevolent coven

forged in the molasses of our brains

sticky with the good memories

they pull you in with vinyl webbing just enough to remember

only to shit you back out before joy sees sun

every few weeks she is back in my dreams

a neighborhood friend that stalks the streets of my nostalgia

by now she knows the terrain better than I do

when I’m awake I wonder

if maybe she’s dreaming of me

if maybe she never stopped dreaming of me

if maybe i can keep on sleeping

and bury my face into the coven

and feed on the honey

and we can grow old in vinyl

and stay sticky together forever like we planned

in the forgotten belly of a dream

too far away to ever wake

I’d like to hate myself in the morning

I considered calling out tomorrow

like that would solve a problem I had yet to identify

my reason for absence would read

could not put self down

I have become a 3 A.M. toddler

fussy

exhausted

unwilling to bend the knee to a dream

a 180 pound battering ram of loose leaf thoughts

stapled down, still

against the coarse palm of my walmart sheets

go to bed, you fool

you’re no good like this

the dishes in my sink mock me

what squalor is this?

I used to dream well

in neon and high fidelity

there was lust

adventure

but i suppose that was simply pirite

noxious potentiality

when i’ve run out of runway

when gravity finally defeats my eyelids

when that damn cat stops pawing at my doorknob

i’ll trundle away into something tidy

maybe a pocket in a smoking jacket i’ve never worn

and i’ll wake once more

stewing at the thought of my lost hours

barren and stupid

just as phony as it can be

underneath my rib cage

is a patch of sallow wisdom

sewn to the bone

jagged in its humor

and wistful for a decade before

I talk to the moon

she doesn’t listen

but the frosted edges of my nostrils

sing sweet carols in mimicry of dreams

a melody played in a penny arcade

grief sails onward

over a cardboard sea

REYHAN JONES

1,001

I dream of Insomnia as she kicks my ass

I am told one thousand and one more by an unreliable narrator

as I dream you live another day

STACY SEILER

“Forms in the Half Light”

It wasn't the sounds from the street

that kept me awake that night,

but instead, the ghostly reflections,

that moved across the walls.

Irregular bricks of light

on a single defined path.

Racing,

intense and brightly at first,

then slowly

fading

until their forms hovered

between an intangible presence and absence.

The kind of absence

that makes you wonder

how they existed at all.

So stark and furious in their birth,

only to become a never-ending procession

of ephemeral entities,

that leave no trace.

30 years have slipped by,

but that night

remains with me

as proof

that some things in life

can only be experienced in the moment.

Not everything is meant to live in the tangible.

In the light of day, it never happened.

Yet their memory - just as profound -

continues,

captured in the mind

for an eternity.

FERNANDO ZELAYA

Reflections on dancing partly written at the Lightning Field on September 22, 2024

I sit in a bed and stare out a window through which I see myself sitting in a bed. The voice next

to me asks What's your favorite memory of this place? I realize I'm only familiar with it at night.

I vow to never write the word I ever again.

Fate has decided things are to be until it decides otherwise.

There's something haunting about a pothole forming in the street where there wasn't

one before.

I am full of self suspicion.

I must watch how I behave.

Clarity - what is it that tethers me?

I've lived my whole life in one place.

This is my third attempt to write about running away.

I can't find words for things I can't hold.

We dreamt of dancing but never did.

I watched the sky turn dark.

The clouds resemble memories of shadows but I can't recall their names.

The air sounds different and the mountain range is beautiful.

I think to myself Where is the moon?

For a split second the voice next to me doesn't respond.

The edges of shadows are blurred

and the quality of light is both harsh and delicate at the same time.

I sit in a canyon propped up on a pedestal.

Things I wrote in past lives turn out to be true later on.

You'd love to see the stars.

The moon rose quick.

There's a light on the Bronx River Parkway that flickers at night.

It dances on and off and on and off.

LU GILLESPIE

Shadows from The Moonlight

Oh, King Peony

with heavy head held –

Emperor of ennui

Is it time that you fell?

What dreaded wind

Might put petals to land?

What scatters, sings

Stories of reverend

Lay your head

Shake out your bones

You still exist

Trawl digitaldrome

Look up stars

In our God shaped hole

Heavenly winged things

Flag on flagpole

What moves His hand

To delete

Noun of the land

Too strange to keep?

I wait I wait

I wail I weep

I steep in fear

I feel my weight

I wear my skin

I stretch my heart

I part the sea

I see no part

Every time, I faint, I dream

Of springtime blossoms

Of apple trees

Every time, you’re on a swing

Your back is turned

You’re sparkling

I faint, a little every day

To see you there

To watch you play

I dream, but still, I can’t reach you

I can’t call out

I cannot move

I dream so faint it’s hard to see

A moonless night

A strange ennui

To meet in flesh, it would be quicker

My eyes grow heavy

My sight, it flickers

In this land, there is no time

No sorry brows

No knowing lines

Every night, I sleep to dream

I’ll go to watch til you see me

And we will lay beneath that tree

HALLIE LEDERER

Sonnet for Winter

A young girl in a snowy park

sits in the somber fields

sleepily shielding the power she wields

and illuminating the dark.

A hand latches on to her face

and holds her there

for all to stare

and back to outer space

it goes, with just one golden finger.

Her eyes are searching the stars

as she forgets that day in winter.

She has gone too far.

Have I gone too far?

I can’t remember where we are.

Steezy Breezy

Steezy breezy blow it over

don’t think twice

blow it up

your nose explodes

smell flame and cinder

ash coating your fingers

just lick it off

and nuke the fridge

and pedal backwards

but don’t look back

and don’t think twice

and tell yourself

you’re getting better

steezy

easy

breezy

paradise.

Claire de Lune

A girl rose from her bed and glided across the room,

as if she was already dead,

and climbed up to the highest place she could,

which could only be the roof her parents had given her.

But she climbed anyway,

not realizing what was holding her in the air

until it was too late.

And with one faithful step her hope imploded

and collapsed inside her.

As she glided down through the moonlight

and the crisp night air

the Claire de Lune threatened to hold her up

in space and time,

in a frozen moment of peace

but couldn’t stay true

and dropped her to the ground

with a loud thud and a broken neck.

With a loud thud and a broken neck

she laid there

looking up at her roof

and forgetting.

CONTRIBUTORS

S. SUMAN & F. KURTER Born in Turkey and residing in the US, sisters

Suman and Kurter have worked together on many projects over the years,

including a collection of children’s stories - “Stop Pining” - translated from

Turkish to English forthcoming from The Missing Library Editions. One late

night, while reading their father’s obituary, the sisters are surprised to

read he is survived by his wife and their son. This incident becomes the

basis for their ongoing collaborative work in translation: Impossible

Directions / Unnatural Disasters* - A Manual for Collecting, and sets into

motion their on again off again dalliance with Insomnia.

SUNNY ZHENG-HERB is a Chinese-American writer and artist, raised in the

“626” Asian-majority suburb of Southern California. She is a painter and

musician and teaches high school visual arts in Aurora, CO. She also works

as the worship and youth director of a small parish church called Sacred

Grace Englewood. Her previous writing experience includes gallery

publications, grant-writing, museum wall text, and a dissertation on

Asian-American visual politics. She is working on her first book, a memoir

on trauma, chronic pain and wrestling to believe.

Website: Sunny Zheng-Herb

ALICIA TEBEAU-SHERRY studied writing at the University of Vermont. Her

poetry has been published in the Cold Lake Anthology and UVM’s The Gist,

and she is currently a poetry reader for Variant Literature. Her poems

attempt to grab at moments and trap the senses, and when she is not

writing, she runs for fun and reads too much.

LUCKY STIFF (they/he) is a trans/nonbinary director, writer, and performer

working in Chicago and New York. Their work has been featured at the

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Steppenwolf Theatre Company,

Goodman Theatre, Blue Man Group Chicago, Boy Friday Dance Company,

and the McKittrick Hotel (home of Sleep No More) among many others.

@lucky.stiff

luckystiffdrag.com

RAPHAEL KRASNOW teaches English at Black Rock High School, an

alternative continuation school in Yucca Valley, CA. He is a graduate of

Portland State University, holding a Masters in Education. He resides in

Palm Springs with his 13-year-old daughter and cat, Demarcus. Raphael is

a long-time lover of fantasy and science fiction. He spends his spare time

playing piano and Mario Kart with his daughter.

For most of my life, as a writer, my work has been tied to an inability, or

unwillingness, to go to sleep. The stillness of my universe between

midnight and 4 AM has been the optimal setting for my creativity, buoyed

by the moon and the stars and the feverish race of my heartbeat during

hour 20 of wakefulness. I think, as well, there is something to be said for

the danger, the thrill, and the teeming possibilities from feeling like the

only one still buzzing in a city asleep. This work is indicative of how I have

interacted with my insomnia for the past few years.

REYHAN JONES’ works include memoirs, fiction, and children’s stories. A

part time botanist, she is a 2020 recipient of the ECU Millhouse Grant.

Jones is deeply invested in an exploration of migration, whether physical

or mental, inspired by ambiguous nativity as found in the plant world.

Inspired by her insomnia and late night wanderings, Jones’ most recent

publications include a short story in La Poubelle about night blooming

flowers of Central Asia and an essay for the Oister Review. She resides in

Bellport, Long Island.

STACY SEILER is a multi-disciplinary journalist, artist, and design educator

based in New York City. As the Art Editor of IRK Magazine, Stacy

contributes interviews and feature articles on the work of innovative

fashion designers and artists worldwide, including Maurizio Cattelan, Li

Edelkoort, Michael De Feo, Yuima Nakazato, and Studio Drift. Her artwork

has received features in Drawing Magazine, Photo Trouvée Magazine,

Common Ground, Oyedrum, Artistonish and The Studio Visit Book. She has

exhibited in notable institutions, including Sotheby's, Southern

Alleghenies Museum of Art, USM Museum of Art, The Gould-Guggenheim

Estate, Swiss General Consulate NY, Fashion Institute of Technology and

The Painting Center. In addition to her artistic practices, Stacy is an

Assistant Professor of Design Strategies at Parsons School of Design.

Stacy earned her BFA with a minor in Art History from the Maryland

Institute College of Art and her MFA from Parsons School of Design.

For a good part of my youth, insomnia was my enemy. It was an

unwelcome guest who appeared without warning and visited often. Then,

in the middle of a sleepless night, I had a complete shift in perspective. I

decided to embrace my inability to sleep, and I began to envision my

nocturnal existence as that of a spirit who roamed the corners of rooms

and peered through glass portals into the darkness unnoticed. It became

my time to explore the Yin of consciousness, steeped in silence and devoid

of judgment from others. In the end these somnolent observations formed

permanent memories o transient moments that I now grasp to capture in

tangible form.

@mywestvillagelife

www.stacyseiler.c

FERNANDO ZELAYA - I live in a constant state of mourning the passing of

every moment. I was born in Tegucialpa, Honduras on October 30, 1998

during Hurricane Mitch. I’ve lived in the Bronx, NY since I was about 2. I

made my first book(s) when I was in the fifth grade; short stories written

and poorly illustrated on loose leaf paper. I made my first photograph in

2015 on a family vacation, shortly before my senior year of high school. I

began making handmade books again throughout college. After I

graduated I began publishing other people’s books with friends, a process

which I fell in love with. I utilize different mediums such as photography,

video, and writing to engage with memory and the loss of it, extraction

and absence, familial histories, and nostalgia. I let chance dictate the

things I make; my photographs are not staged and my writing is

referential to lived experiences. These themes are then tied together in the

book form where narratives are formed with these disparate items.

@phernandozelaya

fernandozelaya.com

LU GILLESPIE is a Brooklyn-based multimedia artist and park bench poet

whose practice primarily examines digital landscapes– written both in

stone and in sand. While she completed a BS in Computer Science with a

minor in Studio Art from Washington University in St. Louis, her

sketchbooks and code often resemble something closer to poems and

stories. She currently works as a software engineer focused on

researching and developing experimental interfaces within emerging

technological environments.

@pathological__lair

HALLIE LEDERER is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, exploring

themes of adolescence, nostalgia and the impact that our formative years

have on our ongoing psyches in her poetry work. With a Master's degree in

Art Education, she is passionate about making a positive difference in the

world through the arts and fostering community by encouraging self

expression. Hallie is also a visual artist with a focus on painting and

collage.

@halz_art

hallielederer.com

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