On a Bed of Anxiety

My bed, it comforts me.

This is home.

Layers of blankets bode me a “come hither” as I climb in.

Cool sheets kiss my body, as if to say hello. I shudder, but just as soon exhale a deep breath of relief.

The sea of blankets overwhelm my senses. I feel their warmth wrap around me as a butterfly in a cocoon.

My head rests gently on a cloud I call pillow, as I rub lavender on my temples. The scent fills me with peace as I inhale.

A large shirt, entirely too big, envelopes me, as silk shorts caress my thighs.

My feet, oh they’re there, as naked toes lightly touch the cottony earth.

No socks—I could never sleep with socks. They act as if they’ve no purpose in life but to be obnoxiously close. Closer than close. Relentlessly obsessed. But I digress.

I begin to shift my body and mind to allow myself the serenity that comes with a long-awaited sleep. Sleep I’ve needed since the morning upon wake.

Preparing my thoughts to drift into dreams, I lay.

And I wait.

And just as the countless nights before, nothing happens.

It’s as if everything that led up to this very moment was all for naught.

What a joke.

A joke my mind tells me every night.

A joke.

I never laugh.

Instead, I lay.

And I wait.

The fan whirs, and the thunder roars outside my window.

The perfect storm.

Every tiny detail, every single step, everything was calculated and set up for success.

And now?

Now, every little thing that was carefully construed for rest shifts.

Now, the bed is rocks.

The blankets, they’re heavier than boulders. The weight of the world, all on my chest.

Icy sheets are now made up of sweat and discomfort.

The cloud of pillow has now sunk to the earth as an angel cast out of heaven, no longer lifting me harmoniously to the sky. Flattened to the dirt.

Lavender now repels me, irritating the demons inside of me.

I sneeze three times, and my demons cackle a “bless you”, smirking.

That large shirt that comforted me loosely? It’s now an annoying neighbor, on either side of my house. I feel the gravity of it all.

Silk now rubs me the wrong way, and I cringe when I hear it softly slide against itself.

My feet become ice as they tear against the cotton earth, snagging against the finest pebble of loose string.

And my thoughts.

Oh my thoughts.

Racing, racing.

I speed so fast I know I’ll get pulled over.

A ticket to nowhere.

No dreams to even take me there.

One hundred miles per hour, and I’m not slowing down.

I think of everything and nothing.

Nothing, yet everything.

My mind is spinning as I try laying sideways.

My body tries, but my mind already knows that the effort was lost before it began.

And so I wait.

And I lay.

Time goes by slowly as I toss this way and that.

Even the clock is yawning as it screams each second at me.

I close my eyes and ignorantly believe it will help.

It never helps.

I open them again, and look into the darkness. Black.

It’s such a loud silence, the black of my room.

I close my eyes once more, tightly holding down, as if my eyes will pop out of my head should I not.

I reluctantly open them and in disbelief, I gasp.

Night gave way, inconspicuously, and the piercing sun is shining back at me, smiling the most dastardly smile.

What a joke.

A joke my mind greets me with every morning.

A joke.

I never laugh.

Home.

A place in which mind and body reside, comfortably or not.

This is home.