Pre Sleep Nap
︎︎︎︎︎ Haydée Touitou
︎ Sept 21, 2023
Lie down on your living room floor.
Breathe to warm up the back of your neck, turning your own back into fire.
Breathe to make your stomach as big as an elephant.
Breathe to elongate your tongue.
Breathe so your knees can touch the ground and your thighs touch the ceiling.
Breathe so you don’t vomit your lungs.
Breathe for your eyeballs to reach the stratosphere.
Breathe turning your ears into shellfish and your nails into fakes.
Breathe to tangle your toes and open up your hair.
Breathe to water your mouth and your nipples while your elbows start to shake.
Breathe for your ankles to fly high.
And breathe for your snoozing butt.
Wake up before the sun goes down.
Breathe to warm up the back of your neck, turning your own back into fire.
Breathe to make your stomach as big as an elephant.
Breathe to elongate your tongue.
Breathe so your knees can touch the ground and your thighs touch the ceiling.
Breathe so you don’t vomit your lungs.
Breathe for your eyeballs to reach the stratosphere.
Breathe turning your ears into shellfish and your nails into fakes.
Breathe to tangle your toes and open up your hair.
Breathe to water your mouth and your nipples while your elbows start to shake.
Breathe for your ankles to fly high.
And breathe for your snoozing butt.
Wake up before the sun goes down.
Haydée Touitou, author and translator, began experimenting with poetry in 2019, her work appearing in multiple publications. In March 2020, We Have Been Meaning To, a book of poetry by Haydée and photographs by Marie Déhé was published by Art Paper Editions. In the last couple of years, Haydée attended a series of residencies where she experimented with still life poems, resulting in two books, In Constant Hilarity published in 2021 with Thoughts Of Me Press and Still Life Poems / Poèmes Nature Morte which will be published in a bilingual edition with Pois.é in 2023.
Also by Haydée: I want to danse