The world

  I find myself sleepy.  The antibiotics coursing through my veins makes me want to set my head down and drift off into a land where there is no pain.  I hate having to go backwards-two steps forwards and four steps back.  Like an endless game of Monopoly where you never collect two hundred dollars.  At least the nightmares have been settling down and I haven't woken up scared and confused as to where I am and what is going on-dreams of shadows cast down upon me, their arms clutching and holding onto my skin as my blood is drained by their long and sharply formed nails.  I slip.  My body surging on the sheets-grabbing onto nothing and everything.  They take me and throw me in the back of their truck-carry me away somewhere where I'll be forgotten.  Finally, I can rest.  It's the quiet dreams that scare me the most.  Eyes staring at me from across the room.  Black and uncomfortable.  Filled with rust.  I creep down and under the covers, but they follow me into the cotton.  Descent sleep-I hope that it finds me one day.  It's never too late.  To wrap your arms around the one that you love-to close your eyes and nestle into the soft bed and fall.   As I begin to sleep, I wonder what might happen tomorrow.  Such a big word: tomorrow.  Filled with such anticipation.  It hovers there in an empty space in our imagination.  We gulp it in, caress its virtues and rise again...cup of coffee....cigarette....shower....fresh new eyes that envelope the world with a sense of wonder, as if we were a child yet again and our dreams were meant to come true.