Halfed

The sleep:

He is wet when he sleeps, disgusted. She is disappointed, dry. They roll and ru in sleep. No, she does not sleep. She stares, in dark. She stares in dark. She does not blink. His eyes come open between the day and night.

She has not slept. The sheets, now, like the skin are wet. She cannot find her hands, her lisp begins again, again--she is not new, not this one. She has been found before, once, earlier, on the doorstep of the house that was not full. On the house that was abandoned. She was not new.

She stares and does not sleep. He wakes and coughs and turns. They hate, then, they hate. In sleep, in wake, the in and out goes in and out and it is only the in and out. They sleep in hate and do not close their eyes.

We awake.

Again, it is the later hours in the morning. She has not slept. He has slept in wet and it sticks to him. To his skin. There were mornings when his mother did not wake. No, there was one morning when she did not wake. And there are more when she did not wake. She continues, indented and dead.

Yes, she is dead and you are wet.
We half, she says.

The sleep to wet. He brings a russian girl to the house. He brings a russian girl to the bed. She is not asleep. She stares. He in and out, he in and out. She stares in sleepless. Not yet. He brings a russian to the house and stares in eyes that do not stare.

They do not stare, he thinks. The bed is wet. A man knocks. He is Ivan. He is drunk. You are Irish, Ivan says. Yes, he says. They drink and do not believe that they are drunk.

The others sleep, in wet. The sheets are wet.
We are only, they say.

[s]