What has you after me?
I actually sleep soundly these days. One night out of three, at least, and some days. The day can be nicer, brighter, usually on floors. The lights on, a girl nearby if at all possible. They come cheap if you know where to look.
What I mean is that the nightmares never really go away. They terrify and confuse- usually the most upon waking. Was I asleep? Dare I look? Dare I learn? Dare I leap? The debris that results from these crashing worlds would make anyone doubt themselves more than not.
Is it a comfort to learn that life goes on? Hardly. More comforting would be the knowledge that these words would stay on their pages, but that doesn't seem any more likely or any more reasonable. We've all got a narrative to pursue, and when you shut your eyes, hard, to block out that burning light and blind yourself preemptively to save your latter sight, it blinks away from you. And then you know that you're never really in control.
I spend as much time as possible on floors these days. Oh, not for any vertigo or typical lack of stature- but because it just feels more secure. Grounded. At one with the universe or whatever is just out there around you.
Because there are things around you, aren't there? Sometimes it's four walls, sometimes myriad faces, and sometimes a grey limitless sky, an expansive firmament that you can only hope remains in place as it hangs listlessly above the conifers, above the rooftops, in front of your very face as the breath you're taking materializes in front of you, blocking your view for just a second and making a witness, a mark for itself because it might just be your very last.
And that's part of why the floor is there. It exists as the one limit that is associable, the one thing that can be both natural and humane, the solitary friend that can hold you up in the darkest of times or the brightest of days when you're just too afraid to open your eyes.
Sure, I sleep soundly.
but what dreams may come
hold on tight.