Sad tonight

To tell you the truth, Amy, the world is never quite where you think it is, it's typically a little ways away from the last place you laid eyes on it. When gentle Morpheus takes hold of you, you leave it up there, on the bright surface of consciousness where your waking self resides. You know how it confuses you when you reach for a glass of water on the night table and your fingers brush the edge of a lamp stem instead. Someone moved it while you were asleep and yet you're sure no one entered your bedroom. Who could've done such a thing? Having given up on god with a capital "g" you are now perhaps the plaything of lesser gods, imps who simply like to create mischief and commit minor acts of mayhem. When you're in the woods they encircle you with their charms. They put you to sleep and inch the world away from you.

They watch you sleep, they see your eyes flickering under their lids, they hear your breath that stops every so often, then returns with a rattle and a sigh, they feel the heat coming from your body, they are so close to you, an unearthly presence just inches from the surface of your skin. Amy, if you are not careful they will enter you. They are not as harmless as they appear.

Once the die is cast it is so hard to become someone else. Look at your parents today, hemmed in on all sides by the demands of daily life and their ceaseless struggle to meet those demands. They behave as if they could wish away their biological selves. Is their predicament the result of willfulness or fate? Such children they are, what right did they have to bring you into the world? You watch them drink and smoke and fight and eat. That's all they do, except for the odd occasion when they try to have sex, or the evenings when they walk the dogs together. You watch them closely. They are inside you, kiddo. You're still young, so you can blame them for your twisted lip and scurvy outlook on life. But not for long. Soon you'll have to take responsibility for yourself, despite finding the world slightly out of reach.

For now let yourself lie on the couch, your head in your boyfriend's lap, watching television, eating tortilla chips and salsa. Maybe later you'll post your feelings on Facebook or text your friend how happy you are, now that you've got a boyfriend who loves you. Not like your mother's boyfriends, the ones who came around when you were young. You grew up with babies and now you want one of your own. Yes, a baby of your own. This man in whose lap you begin to nod off, he doesn't give a shite about having a baby, but he sure likes having sex with you, doesn't he? Your baby won't change his life, the time he spends with his buddies or the way he looks at other girls, but you'll find that out for yourself, Amy. Your world, which looks so predictable, is never quite where you think it is. It's not inside your head, where you spend so much of your time daydreaming about swimming pools and palm trees. It's not the one you play around in when you're in bed. It's the one you live in from day to day, the one that makes demands on your time and your body, the one that will break you, just as it broke your mother. The one that will wear you down, until you wind up looking just like her. When mischievous gods taunt you, Amy, there is nothing you can do but take it. But this is only one of the reasons I'm sad tonight.