At night I lie with my head pressed against a pillow and my ear folded under listening to myself. I am fetaled. Not the loose sitting-position adult fetal. The legs tucked up into my chest arms wrapped around them fetus fetal. I listen to myself. To the blood flowing through my arterioles, rushing up to oxygenate my brain and fuel my Night Thoughts. Ba-thump goes my heart like that of my mother’s when she and I were one- my worries none. Ba-thump. I listen to myself and replay the day’s theatrics. But I am smarter, and funnier, and less awkward of a person. My jokes have the right timing and are well received and I am benevolent towards all and I am admired. Or... my mistakes are amplified. Everyone thinks poorly of me and I can’t believe you said that you ******* idiot. I talk to myself in a way that would be unacceptable if I were speaking to anyone else. For a time. At least until I am quelled by the heartbeat my mother gave me and I gain solace with my ear pressed against the pillow listening to it. Sometimes I listen to my life, count the beats like stars in the sky and wonder at that cosmic origin that created Mother Earth that created my mother that created me listening to my own heartbeat and likening it to the stars in the sky using the synapses that outnumber the stars themselves. I have a lot of time to think while I listen to myself. At night I am a psychonaut exploring the constellations of my own mind. I’ve named them Fear and Love and Hope. Ba-thump, ba-thump.