Crawling

perhaps i will regain power by unleashing this tale on the world.

my husband and i had a argument, one of many during the newlywed year.

the bridal magazines should have a section on how not to tear your hair out after the wedding.

they should just shove it in there, you know, somewhere between the perfect gown and where to honeymoon.

so this argument, well it weighed heavily on me, because words trigger memories that trigger time machines.

we go back to times we’d rather forget, we sink into the hole of ourselves and relive trauma.

unbeknownst to my darling husband, our arguments at times need trigger warnings. not his fault, because he was not present in my past...

just the absent father, the stalker, the narcissist, the ghosters, the devils.

they’re there waiting for me when i exit the time machine, when something that was said transports me to the netherworlds of my past.

but alas, the soothing world of sleep, to take me away from it all.

Yet as my eyes close they reopen in a world not unlike my own but with distinct qualities.

my mothers house was hers but yet it wasn’t. my home was somewhere between his arms and no arms...

my best friend and i approach my mother’s home where i am staying because perhaps the dream arguments caused us to end our union.

i sense something is not quite right.

i climb the creaky stairs to fetch my belongings, my husband’s duffel bag full of the clothes i threw in, in what must have been quite a hurry.

i can see it at the top of the stairs waiting for me to retrieve what’s mine when suddenly my best friend yells, “Stop!”

i look up, and i can hear them before i see them. it sounds like the air is snapping, as though a fire was being set around me.

crackle snap

crackle snap

i can feel my heart race as my eyes make sense of what they see.

bugs.

hundreds.

thousands.

tiny and fast, crawling, racing up my mothers walls. they are on every inch. they crawl over the paintings, they rise from the stairs, they search through my clothing, they slowly devour everything.

then, the most disturbing.

there are small grey eggs. all over.

taking turns bursting, giving birth to more of each other.

everywhere. they were everywhere.

my best friend grabs me, tries to get me to go.

“but what about my things? they are all i have left!”

i am pulled away despite my struggle. i can see the stairs fading, the house falling, everything imploding...

i awake.

lost.

scared.

i gasped and checked myself for them.

to see if they’d crossed over from the dream into the reality of me sitting on my bed, back home, with him asleep beside me.

i want to wake him. i need his touch. i crave to escape the world that just tried to keep me.

let him sleep i think.

by morning it’ll all be back to the way it was.

breathe.

think happy thoughts.

they won’t be there when i close my eyes again.

they can’t be.

the scariest part, is the moment when you don’t know what’s real.

when you gasp but haven’t quite exhaled yet,

when your heartbeats still race not yet slowing down,

when you’re blinking fast and looking around not knowing if what you see is real,

where the infestation that crawls at your soul might very well be the truth.

imagine living in those moments never sensing relief, never fully coming to.

remaining forever in a bug infested nightmare.