Every morning, I wake up thinking of all the things that I tried to forget before I fell asleep.
The sun rises again and all of them are right there, perched on the end of my bed, waiting.
They look at me with sleepy eyes, the way a golden retriever would when they just want a little snuggle. But these thoughts are not pups with soft velvet fur. They are tiny little demons that hide in the shape of a large cuddly friend but are actually out to get me. Not in the sense that they carry knives and rope, but they know where to creep and crawl so that they get stuck in my brain in an endless loop, one that I am powerless to stop.
I will say to them,
“Not today, please. I can’t.”
But they show up nonetheless and insist on staying.
They are messy house guests.
I do not enjoy them.
They run in circles, begging to be chased.
I am tired. I have other things to do.
So I push them off of me and try to move through my day but they cling like little balls of fuzz that refuse to let go and I have to pretend that they are not there, in my way, making me itch.
And after walking around all day carrying these little tiny demon thoughts on my back and heart and brain, I am relieved to go to bed.
It’s a small window.
A brief reprieve from what waits for me in the dawn.