Charred Confetti

Seeking sleep; the purest form of solitary comfort and escape, you toss, becoming tangled in the bed’s wrinkled accessories, surrendering again to the feelings that direct your mind’s traffic.

It’s been a long conflicted evening. Why do the soul’s deepest queries seem to emerge at bedtime; an aphotic pop quiz, asking the toughest questions at a time when you feel the most depleted and least prepared to answer.

You check the clock and moan. Time is not cooperating; he’s dragging his heavy feet again, puttering and stalling…making you wait. You change positions; kick off the blankets. Your mind stares into itself; a smoky crystal ball conjuring a vision.

Mutinous thoughts congregate like a murder of crows on a tightrope; omens of doom with jagged wings and lethal beaks. Their focused eyes are seeded with evil; they target your most vulnerable places. You try deflecting the attack, but your shield becomes too heavy, allowing the enemy to build momentum. Your mind becomes a movie reel of madness and tragedy taking hostages and burning corpses.

Your eyes snap open. It’s difficult to breathe. Your heart feels too large for your chest; it’s beating too quickly. Is this your heart? Is this your mind? The darkness fills every space like a rising flood of dirty water.

A vibration distracts you from your morbid ruminations. Youthful laughter and the thrumming bass of a stereo pull you back to the palpable. The car passes your house and you listen as the sound slowly dissipates into the endless shadows of the nighttide. You wonder where they’re going, all jacked-up on life, plowing through your phantoms; scattering crows like charred confetti.