Sitting In Bed

Sitting in bed. It’s time for sleep, shower first. Three baskets of clean clothes, bedside. Cats' nocturnal sport rumbling across the wood floor, mother pouncing daughter, chasing rubber balls. Tinnitus and the sound of air whuffing through the ventworks. Faintly piano music seeps through the seal of my door from children’s room, as they dream. I’m sitting... in bed. I need to shave. My razor’s dull. The hairs will be plucked from my face, less shorn. I will examine skin for blemishes, and finding none will probably aggravate a neutral irregularity to the point of bleeding. I’ll brush my teeth first, to avoid the taste of shaving cream. Then shave and shower, and recall the salt stone my abuser once gave me. She loved me then. Perhaps. My shampoo is infused with tea tree oil and mint. It irritates my sensitive scalp a little. It smells so good. I’m not ready to sleep. I’m not ready to shower or shave. I still taste milk on my breath. And I’m awake, as if capturing a few more moments of consciousness… were a virtue. Is it? Tinnitus my faithful friend. A frequency so high it’s almost imaginary. A close listen reveals dissonance, two or three tones. The warbling interference pattern. You are the closest I come to silence. Cotton swabs, shoot. I need to make a list. One or two things I remember in the store, and more I forget. Some microwavable containers for rice, to take to work. I’ve been eating sweet potatoes in an effort to lose weight. I like them, but… variety. Something… something else I wanted to remember. Batteries? No, that wasn’t it. Cobwebs? No, why would I need to remember cobwebs? I have cobwebs in my brain. Ah! Kitty litter. So that too, and… well, I’ll think about it later. I’m starting to lose feeling in my feet and lower legs. It’s better than restless legs, with which I sometimes wrestle. Usually when I’ve done this, procrastinating sleep. Magnesium depletion, I suppose. Or something. To have a hand on my back, scratching sweetly. An tender arm draped lovingly, even excitedly over my large belly. The sensation, the meaning. I long for it. Long hair, gentle voice, she's with me. Forever. If only. Goodnight.