Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I just lie there, but that isn’t right, is it? I’ve messed up explaining it already. I don’t know if I’m awake really. I’m somewhere in-between. I know that my body is lying in bed. I can feel the weave of my 300 hundred thread count, cotton blend sheets, still static from the dryer. I can smell my own acid breath as it lingers in the small space between my face and my pillow. I keep the blankets clamped to the mattress in order to seal in the heat but at the same time, I’m also out there.
I want to wake up. I want to roll off the springs and jump in the shower, whistle a tune while I grind my coffee and scroll through my news feed but I can’t. Part of me is stuck in my head and one part can’t move without the other.
My mind feels split, like trying to watch two televisions at the same time, unable to really focus on either. One story is the dream, it’s played out till the point where half of me woke. The other is my body, paralyzed by mindlessness. Except the TVs’ don’t just keep rolling, they’re static, trapped repeating the same scene on a loop, unable to continue with the story until one of them breaks but neither of them wants to break. They’re both determined to be real. So I’m caught in the middle of this conflict and the anxiety sets in.
In the bed I can feel it in my breathing, in the tension of my muscles, in the way my brow crunches up into a tight lump.
In the dream, I sense the growing pressure in the world. The people become mean. They can see my deepest self-doubts and shout them to the laughing masses. I feel small. I feel cold.
Then eventually I have to pee so bad that I force myself to get up.