Because all your mother’s love weaves a beautifully oppressive blanket from the same fabric she stitched you together with, stuffed full of the incessant need for acknowledgement, confirmation. Approval. And now you have to spend all your free time awake finding out who you are. Flipping to the cool side of the pillow.
Because your brother’s quilt is better than yours. It’s marvelous, and colorful. It’s patterns more intricate, it’s feeling more warm. And you love that about him, you feel proud like a mother. But yours looks dingy and feels tough in comparison, making it hard to sleep under the weight of disappointment you see reflected in everyone’s eyes.
Because your boyfriend keeps you up at night, awakening all the things you try to hide at sunrise. And you “like it daddy,” but not too much, because you don’t want him to question where you learned it and scream all morning like the rooster that the neighbors across the street should’ve been got rid of but instead you’re up every morning, bright and early, in the gym at 5AM to keep up the body that he likes so much.
Because your boss wants you to come in early. Like early early. And you’d refuse, if you could, but you don’t want to seem “angry.” No, heaven forbid the tired girl gets “angry” in the office, a walking stereotype. But if you’re lucky, they’ll just confuse your outburst with that other girl who you look just like. You’d be less mad if you weren’t sleep deprived but counting sheep don’t work when you’re counting bills and trying to figure out how big dreams turned into waking nightmares and you used wanna be somebody but now you just want an extra hour a night, a large coffee, and maybe a $1 raise.
Because society doesn’t know you, they just see you. Distorted. Like looking in the mirror in a lucid dream.
Because your alarm will go off soon but you’re up reading this.
Goodnight, sleep well.
Y.
