2002-11-22 - 3:43 p.m.: melted ice

dear extra strength excedrin,

i woke up this morning thinking of you. then i saw three bright yellow lizards scuttle across my pillow, just in front of my nose. they had beady red eyes, and they seemed more than a little venomous. i didn't care. i wanted to die.

i don't know what a migraine is supposed to feel like... i've never had a headache as bad as the one i had last night. i felt like someone was driving a stake into that little indentation between the base of my skull and the top of my neck. the dimmest light hurt. the faintest sound pounded. my pillow felt like a rock and my sheets felt like dirty velcro. i couldn't sleep and couldn't cry. i wanted you.

where were you?

sincerely,

me

i went through a "phase" when i was little in which i'd refuse to close my eyes. those little spots of light you see when you "look" at the backs of your eyelids...? yeah. i thought they were monsters. i had this concept of the universe that placed an angel above my bed, demons underneath it and soul-sucking aliens between the folds of my eyelids. go figure.

last night was about as close as i've ever come to revisiting that childhood paranoia. there's something very frightening about a bad night's sleep. you're in pain. the world is your enemy. lights and life attack you from all sides, to varying degrees. you don't sleep... but you dream. your environment gets twisted into a sort of evil, lurking madness waiting to swallow you whole. the GODDAMN STREET SWEEPING MONSTROSITY that sounds like a whirring, flesh grinding death machine is stalking you.

the clock is teasing you.

your headache becomes a tumor--no--your prenatal mutant twin who has just woken up from her prenatal slumber and is FUCKING HUNGRY. she thinks your brain is the yolk of some post-natal egg. she starts chewing.

you taste damn good.

dammmnnnn good.

*slurp*

but seriously.... i thought i was going to die. and you know what? it would've served me right... treating happiness as something that could be sat upon.

it's a rhythm, not a drum.

(de dum dum)

tomorrow's my birthday.

and my prenatal mutant twin's.

maybe she was just excited.

i'll feed her cake.

inward...outward