mo(u)rning

she opened her eyes. 7:23 am. the sun was already beaming onto her face from the window across the bed from her, shining hot and bright from off the roof of the house across the driveway. the birds were perched as they were every morning for the last 47 days, heads cocked cheerily to the side, screaming their tiny lungs into the summer air. at least they were happy it was summer. at least there was constancy there. so much life and cheer in small animals, she thought. she imagined the thoughts of a little bird brain, wished for the daily happiness that caused small birds to sing.

her face was heavy and puffy, her eyes refusing to open despite feeling wide awake. perhaps it was her allergies, the endless crying that caused her face to swell like it needed an epi pen, or the incurable wakefulness. it had been 57 days since she had slept a full night. she'd toss and turn in bed, drifting between bouts of fitful sobbing and panicky night sweats. the crying helped to exhaust her enough to drift into a pretend slumber before the panic of her reality set in again and the muscles in her face, her jaw, her hands, her forehead would tense, she'd feel the weight of her existence crushing down on her like a steel clamp, and she'd be eyes open again, staring into the darkness of the night, thinking about a life spent like this and feeling afraid that she'd never enjoy a moment of calm and not-fear again. it felt like a life sentence, trapped in the cell of her body, a vessel for a punishment meted out for a crime she didn't realize she'd committed.

she would lay there in bed picking through the details of her life, hopelessly trying to find the reasons she deserved to be this unhappy. a Sysiphean task, she feared she'd find herself rolling that crushing weight around in her mind every moment for the rest of her life.