If you were not already aware, before waking up this morning you dreamed that you were losing your mind. Your dream was all too real to live with the memory, so you forgot it, promptly. But as is the habit with bad dreams and nightmares, around a quarter of four, in that moment when your mind starts to make the switch between focusing on your job and realizing that soon you will be freed from your cubical – right then, at that moment, when your heart starts to jump up in you, becoming light, that is when it happens.
At first it’s just a flash - a vision - but it’s enough to bring that floating heart crashing down. Then you remember a scene, then it all comes crashing...
My eyes won't focus and I wont force them.
Even if they could I probably wouldn't let them.
I'm tired of seeing nothing but visions
Of how my life grows increasingly boring
With every night that I sit alone.
I'm twenty-four
And the most exciting things I do
Involve papier-mâché and carpet samples,
Alone at my dinning room table,
Picking my kid sister up from a date.
I haven't been out in over three years.
For one solid hour every night
I try to stare at the wall without blinking.
To see if I can do it;
And to see if I can forget where I am.
Sometimes it starts to change color,
first pink and then blue,
Then sometimes it opens up into a valley;
I watch children play hide-n-go-seek,
They wont let me in because I'm too old.
And there's some nights at two a.m.
When I get so fed up I decide to do something about it.
I get in my truck and I drive away from here
Until I can't keep my eyes open any longer;
When I wake up I'm back in the same bed.
I was either dreaming or I'm tethered to this sorrow.
After it all comes rushing back to you, you try to forget it like you had forgotten it before. You sing yourself a song and smile a false smile; but some part of you knows that every time you force a smile onto your face something in you dies and you will be able to truly smile one less time. There’s no way to forget it.
"AHHHHHHHHHH," I’m screaming,
"I'm dying, I'm dying!"
"Iknowit'sslowlybutit'sstillSCary!"