Bed
A bed is a terrible thing. Because a bed (specifically, my bed) is made to comfort you physically, not to mention totally. Mine succeeds. This is unfortunate.
Because my bed eliminates all physical discomfort I may feel, my body becomes nonexistent. My feet dissolve, my legs melt, my stomach steadily flows into the mattress through a drain on my back, and I am left with my head.
This is dangerous.
When I was a child, this would lend itself to petty fear. Never monsters, but rather darkness as a whole. Later I would come to find out that I was simply given ample amount of time to think about all the awful things that could happen to me. I was afraid of the unknown.
In this way, I am still very much scared of the dark, but rather a 4th dimensional dark. I’m fine with being unaware in the physical world; if a man decides that tonight is a good night to stab a chubby eighteen-year old in the chest and take his Star Wars mirror box and wadded up picture of his ex-girlfriend, well, I have very little say in that. What scares the sleep out of me is the inability to see and experience perfectly my past and future self.
Now, as a very awake boy-man in front of a very bright computer screen, I can say very calmly that I will have more everything in the future. More girls, more jobs, more life, more stuff, more joy, more bullshit, there will be more. Much more, I hope.
But talk to me in fifteen minutes, when my eyes beat restlessly across the celing, wearing down it’s grooves with my rampant pacing. I am sure that I will not know this as fact. I will be unsure that I will ever hold another woman, make another dollar, create another anything, and I will certainly be unsure of any happiness to come. Right there, in that gorgeous sleigh bed, with the down comforter, and the linen sheets, I will panic. I will see nothing but dead ends.
So with nothing but brick wall ahead of me, I will look behind. What I find, I will surely hate. Past experiences seem worthless and hurtful with the knowledge I have now. No positive thought of a past anything comes unmet with a comprehension is its now inevitable undoing. Everything that was good is no longer. Nostalgia exists because it is an illusion. My past is the worst I could’ve ever hoped for because despite it I find myself alone between the sheets.
Now I am caught. Stone walls in front, stone walls behind. I start to twist. I start to tuck and untuck and tuck again. I start to remove my clothing, I gasp, it’s choking me.
Now I’m naked. That’s worse.
I have built this room brick by brick, to protect myself from unknown versions and varieties of myself. Perhaps the twelve-year old who murdered countless lizards and learned to masturbate quite unfortunately. Perhaps the twenty-two year old who has lost an incredible job and is still crying over the girl I lost two days ago. I must barricade myself in this bed, and never ever leave.
I’ll try all sorts of distractions, mostly shallow empty media. Terrible television, sappy music, overpriced white-noise machines. I can turn it louder and louder and my mind won’t stop. I’ll try holding my breath and simply not feeding this beast in my head. But when all is said and done, I leave feeling crazier than when I began.
So maybe you can help me with this one. Maybe this night, you’ll give me some relief. Maybe if you read this then my pillow will finally fit my head right, and I can dream about all the pasts and futures and nows that I’ve got in me, without fear.
See? Even now my eyes begin to fall.
Thank you, and good night.
