Salvation

Sleep. Dreams. Nightmares. Anything is better than the reality I face. I wake up to the torment of my mind. The sun that streams through the window of my room feels like shards of angry glass that stab at my being, tearing me to shreds with angry vengeance. By midday my soul is gasping, desperate for the air it cannot receive trapped inside my body. I can feel it claw at my ribs, scratch at my stomach and bite my skin. It’s hungry, it’s starving, and the only food it knows how to digest now is itself. The thirst will never quench, at least not when I’m awake. By evening my heart is crumbing. It turns to dust and withers away with the north wind. There’s no music, not a sign of light or darkness. That’s the worst thing of all, it’s neutral, worn down like a stone that’s been washed away by the tide over the years. And the sea never forgets, and the ocean never repents. My pillow is my salvation, the escape where my body can revive. The light of the moon and stars flow into me like golden nectar, better than ambrosia. It’s my cure, and I wake up again every morning with the sickness reborn. But the pillow is my ship, my plane, my car. It lets me go, and doesn’t ask me to come back. The only one who beckons me home again is the sun. Traitor. Would it really be so bad if the sun stayed away for a day?