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I wake up with my eyes already open. The dark is close enough to have a pulse. Something large has leaned over me, not touching, just counting my breaths. I close my eyes. That seems to please it. When I wake again, the room has softened. Corners bend inward. The air tastes like it has been used before. I realize I am lying on a tongue, though nothing has bitten me yet. The thing holding me is patient, the way a question is patient. I sleep. I wake. Each time, there is less distance between me and the idea of being kept. The walls listen. The ceiling lowers its voice. I am surrounded by a mouth that has decided I belong to the sentence. I wake again. The dark moves when I think. Something curious shifts its weight around my ribs, learning where I resist. I am not afraid anymore— fear requires exits. By the final waking, morning has already happened without me. There is no edge to find, no opening left to misinterpret as hope. I am held in a place where night stores what it wants to remember. The creature does not sleep. It simply finishes.
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Feb 1
Feb 1, 2026 at 11:16 AM UTC
The Question That Ate Me
I wake up with my eyes already open. The dark is close enough to have a pulse. Something large has leaned over me, not touching, just counting my breaths. I close my eyes. That seems to please it. When I wake again, the room has softened. Corners bend inward. The air tastes like it has been used before. I realize I am lying on a tongue, though nothing has bitten me yet. The thing holding me is patient, the way a question is patient. I sleep. I wake. Each time, there is less distance between me and the idea of being kept. The walls listen. The ceiling lowers its voice. I am surrounded by a mouth that has decided I belong to the sentence. I wake again. The dark moves when I think. Something curious shifts its weight around my ribs, learning where I resist. I am not afraid anymore— fear requires exits. By the final waking, morning has already happened without me. There is no edge to find, no opening left to misinterpret as hope. I am held in a place where night stores what it wants to remember. The creature does not sleep. It simply finishes.
I went through a very big period of psychosis not that long ago that heavily affected my sleep, so here's a poem I wrote to make sense of what I was feeling.
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18/F/United States
Feb 1
Feb 1, 2026 at 11:16 AM UTC
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