Anyone else would think lying here tangled in warmth is peaceful, but not me, of course. The darkness awakens my thoughts instead of lulling me to sleep. Happiness used to consume me in moments like these: wrapped in a cozy comforter with the ceiling fan on its highest setting. It was heaven on Earth when bedtime came around. Every once in a while, nights like these crept into bed with me and would gossip about their plans with me. My worst hits of my growing up replayed in my mind vividly enough to distract the sandman from aiding me. These moments played on the big screen, and my tossing and turning was the only way to change the channel. Then, amidst the cringe at the top ten worst memories of middle school, the sheet beneath me catches aflame. Tossing a leg out from underneath the blanket to seek shelter in the perfect bodily temperature; it welcomed comfort momentarily. Anxiety crawls from the bedframe and sinks its teeth into me. My thoughts run rampant throughout the bedroom: “What if something grabs my foot while it’s out in the open? Better yet, what if there’s a monster underneath the bed, and it takes a bite of my foot? What if it’s my favorite foot? Wait, which one is the favorite?” Enough commotion to sigh and drag my leg back to safety once more. An hour past bedtime rolls around, and there’s a noise in the house. “Is someone in the house? Am I getting robbed? Are the doors locked?” Silence grows like weeds out of the carpet. Safe to assume it was just the house settling. Now I’m wishing my boyfriend didn’t work tonight, so he could fight the imaginary weird house noises; he would for me after all. In my frantic worrying, my body bakes from under the blanket, and my current position is no longer comfortable. My “Master Chief Death Pose” sleeping position never fails me until tonight’s uncomfortable adventure. Flipping onto my back, I stare towards the ceiling and close my eyes. “What if someone breaks in and plans to take you out? Your neck is an easy target; what are you doing?” My thoughts grow louder with each passing minute, and I finally give in. Another rotisserie chicken rotation, my body flips in the bed. The room is hauntingly quiet. You could hear atoms splitting in this room over the fan blowing its air. The urge to get out of my cocoon, roll out of bed, and grab my phone to put on background noise is deafening. I know as soon as I expose my empty sockets to the bright screen, the opportunity to sleep will be gone. I tug the blanket tighter to my skin as if its touch would soothe me to unconsciousness. The worst of them all bulldozes through the doorway and laughs in my face. My bladder lets out a screech at my entire being before forcing gravity to course through me. The battle to sleep has been interrupted by an ally: a human bodily function. Once I make it back into my personal hell tonight, I glance at the clock. It reads 4AM in white blinding letters. My brain has lost the war of rest, and the scariest thing of all? I was supposed to wake up at 5AM.
“I should probably go to bed.”
Elyssa Latham (she/her) is a woman of words, and reader. Elyssa’s works express strong emotions that people go through and get the reader to feel those emotions alongside her. She wants readers to take away that it is okay to allow yourself to feel and that you can craft art out of pain.
Featured image by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash.
