Long Days at Level 4

The cushions on the stained couch

look like bodies.

I close my eyes 

but the shapes remain.

The fingers fall from my notebook

and the torsos twist into constellations. 

I used to watch the stars

but now when they burst through the sky,

I shut the curtains on the day. 

I don’t recognise people anymore

unless they speak in static

and disappear when the wind shakes the house. 

Their bodies

only exist

from the shoulders up. 

I try to people watch from my window

but our street

is a no exit. 

I wander galleries on instagram

and copy the colours

on to canvas I stocked up on. 

I’m not coping with the long days and

the sunshine that blinds my eyes

when I sit on the floor and 

the way he is kind but fair when I cry.

I don’t want a screen,

I want a person. 

I sit in front of the MoMA

on google earth

and take virtual tours of the Musée de l‘Orangerie. 

Drown me in Monet’s water lilies

so I don’t think of his eyes –

they are the exact green.

Rhegan Tu’akoi

Rhegan Tu‘akoi is a Tongan/Pākehā living in Pōneke. She is a Master’s student at Victoria and her words have appeared in Mayhem, Stasis and Tupuranga, among others.