Smiling Dark
Night pins me to the mattress like a specimen a weight on my chest that has no name the room is the same, yet everything tilts wrong I scream inside a throat that forgot how to open Shadows peel from the corners, tall and patient they wear my face but stretched, hungry, wrong fingers of air crawl across my skin like spiders I bargain with a god who is busy elsewhere Time stretches thin as old film, snapping and looping hours collapse into one endless inhale the ceiling lowers, inch by inch, to kiss my eyes I am the fossil being made in real time Then the spell cracks, a small merciful pop my body floods back into itself, heavy and mine I lie gasping, soaked, staring at the harmless dark knowing tomorrow night it will come again, smiling Written by: Samyojana Pantha