You lay there, throbbing silence incubating in your heart, beating through your veins until your tongue swells from your pulse. Night after night, you lay here and watch the sun sink and glow behind shades like prison bars while we talk. You don’t always answer, and it makes me think you wish I was gone. Maybe if I was gone, you’d be able to get some sleep. But it’s not me keeping you up; it’s not the conversation I start two hours into staring at nothing. I’m just bored, you know?
You clicked on the playlist that’s supposed to make you happy, to avoid me. You act like you don’t know who I am. I’m the one, you know, the one who follows you around every day and knows everything about you, because I am you. I’m your blood, your tissue, individual cells crammed inside this body we share, and you know that. How could you forget?
And even though you know this, you still try to ignore me. You look to your ceiling for support, and when nothing offers a sweet release, you try to cover me with your arms. I am more than sight; I can’t be shut off with forcefully closed eyelids. I’m not an image, I’m not a thing, I am you. And you don’t seem to realize this. I can’t just be switched off.
    You know I’m more than noise, but maybe if you turned up the dulcet tones of another inaccurate, slow song, I’d be quiet this time. Come on, really focus this time. Focus on his voice, on the sheets rough with stitches, the flat body pillow you sleep with. Focus on the wet hair on either side of your face. Focus on the fact that I won’t be quiet, no matter how loud the song is.
Focus on how you know you have to wake up soon. The fact that I won’t just shut up. The pressure above your eyelids from the inside of your elbow.
Focus on the pillows all around you. Focus on the stuffed animal you wish was real.
Focus on the warmth your comforter brings you.
Focus on your back.
Really focus this time.
Really focus.