It’s nighttime, the crickets are chirping. The faucet is dripping. There’s light coming in from the street through the cheap vertical blinds that came with my apartment. My bed is uncomfortable, my back is itchy, my neck is stiff. My bones hurt and my mind is running through everything I did wrong today. I forgot to eat breakfast, I stepped on a beetle and I sweated through my shirt during my walk to work, I forgot to print out the form I was supposed to, I made a joke and my co-worker didn’t laugh, I came home and I ate a dinner with too many calories and picked a movie that my roommate didn’t like, then I went to bed without doing the dishes or washing my face.
I shift my body under the covers, but it doesn’t make me more comfortable. I’m still itchy. I see bugs on the ceiling but I know they aren’t really there so I just watch them crawl over each other, squirming and clicking as their exoskeletons brush against each other. They writhe, defying gravity. They drip like water down the wall and puddle on the floor, and the fear I experience isn’t real but it feels real because my body doesn’t know the difference.