“I hear a bug buzzing,” he says.
I turn him on his side to face me on the bed and whisper,
“I hear it too. But get some sleep; it’s good for you.”
****, who am I kidding?
I haven’t gotten a wink of real sleep for the last 20 years.
OK, to be fair, maybe it’s been more like 17.
I hear it too, I hear the buzzing.
The incessant, inescapable dread that comes with
Dormancy.
The feeling when sound transcends your inner ear
And streams through your veins like
Blood.

I’ve let this feeling wake me from sweet slumber
Way too many a time.
Poor Ms. Clavel, I understand you all too well:
“Something is not right!”
When is anything ever right?
When will he and she start meaning “we”
And “I” will not equate with failure?

That’s when the buzzing will stop.
That’s when I will stop serving as my baby brother’s
Teddy Bear at night.
Can he really not fall asleep without me next to him
Or is he just afraid of being
Alone
With the sound of buzzing in his ear?

The day he sat my parents down and said to them:
“Stop fighting!”
Was the day I knew we were truly related.
You will never be alone, my dear.
Never ever…
Let those words buzz through your ear.