[395] Nightmares

This is a different thing. Like a purge piece for my thoughts.

1570

I can’t close my eyes because that’s when the nightmares come. Someone is waiting for me, in the dark, though it isn’t always dark but that’s not the part that matters, not when my feet start moving on their own and then I’m propelling myself forward even though all I want to do is turn around and run. It’s just…you know that feeling when you’re not supposed to want something but you do and you know you should stop but you don’t? It’s kind of like that but without as much guilt or conscious thought. Well, no conscious thought really, when I’ve closed my eyes. The someone never turns. I’m not even sure who they represent but I can feel them. They reach through the blank space between us somehow and the pressure of them aches down my side and latches around my ankle and drags me closer though I always stay far enough away to not be able to touch or hit or kick. And then, the nightmare follows me into waking and I am filled with holes in the spots where that someone grabbed me. So, I don’t close my eyes. I’ve been working out the best ways not to close them. After the first day, it got easier. But I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up and, I probably shouldn’t say anything, but the nightmares are starting to filter into my waking moments. I press my fingers into my eyes and press until, when I pull them away, the world is covered in spots of various colors and, in those spots, lurks that someone. If I blink quickly enough, the image fades and I’m left with the grit that’s built up from days spent trying to keep my eyes open and a world devoid of someones. And yet, when I run my hands over my body and prod the various crevices, I find new pieces going missing. New gaps I can’t account for. And I’m starting to think there’s something I haven’t quite puzzled out just yet waiting in the corners of my mind that might reveal itself if I embrace the nightmare, stop resisting, let myself reach that someone. That maybe I should let my eyes close, just for a minute, and see if the nightmare is as bad as I’ve been imagining. Maybe I’ll be fine…