Maybe I’m the mean one.

Mazes, fighting, claws, running

I pull myself across the ocean of empty bed between us and slip beneath his blanket, dragging his dead hand across my body. His instinctive reaction is to pull away, but he stretches a little to cover it up. I tug his arm back around me, murmuring into his warmth that I had a nightmare, and he is instantly in protector mode, wrapping me up in comfort.

“Roll over and I’ll hold you,” he says in a voice thick with sleep. I sit up to arrange my pillow. Tendrils of nightmare fall away from me and litter my bed. “Look,” I point. Through the slice of open window I see white. Snow always excites me; happiness like a child when it’s even in the forecast.  He smiles a little, pulling me down into place.  “I know,” he says, and I slide down to lay against him, my pillow nestled in the crook of his arm.  He is asleep again instantly, comfortable and happy to have me in his arms.

And I forget just what it was I was dreaming about.

Three-and-four a.m.
hopeless hours
too late for sleep, too early to wake
God, is there anything worse?
Maybe four-thirty-a.m.
Or right before the sun comes up
when the sky gets that rosy hue that
always makes me feel nauseous.

Jaundiced clouds, sick with leprosy,
they start to unravel as soon as the sun bursts through
Diseased flesh decomposing
as the world begins to stir.
If you’re awake at three-or-four-or-four-and-thirty
you’re already outside
You day-slash-night-dream about
orange juice and toast
rushing out the door
sitting in traffic to get to your desk justintime
And all the mundane little
make-you-want-to-blow-your-brains-out details
- business suits and meetings, wpm, irs, iras -
seem so appealing.

This hour
these hours
I always feel empty
literally
something about this time of morning makes my stomach hurt
I’m probably hungry
but eating would make it worse
I’ve been through this hour enough times to know.
Nothing good comes of these hours -
Worry, fear, paranoia, and you forget all the little sweet things
that make you so happy at three-and-four p.m.

I know now,
a malicious witch hovered over my cradle at birth,
her breath, sickly sweet,
carrying her disease,
wrapped around my tiny frame.
- “There is nothing you can do,
I have claimed you as my own,
my three-and-four a.m. child”

How many three-and-four-a.m.s have I spent on a weary laptop
reading, talking, finding other
three-and-four-a.m. children
But at this hour
you are always only alone,
a stale donut from yesterday’s a.m.
with too-pink frosting and pale characatures of sprinkles.

Yes, three-and-four-and-four-thirty-and-five a.m. -
the cocaine hour.
No matter how many years pass,
it’s still the cocaine hour,
I am still the empty vessel at the black desk.
The paint was soft, like wax,
sometimes it came off
and the soft white powder was mixed with soft black paint.
As if that were the greatest of my worries.
Parcelling out my time in lines and bumps,
“Only this much this time, then none for an hour -
or forty-five minutes or thirty-five if I get
a lot of work done
between then and now”

Then it was easy to explain the nausea
the emptiness of three-and-four-a.m.
The cloudy thoughts.

Now, though, no reason,
only my witch’s curse,
my hideous benefactor.
In whose dank image was I formed, putrid Mother?
What demon have you set on my shoulder to whip and torment me?
Your foul breath lingers still in my nostrils
and I am always nauseous
at three-and-four-and-four-thirty-and-five a.m.

We’re walking out of the library; I’d had to send a fax.  It’s a gorgeous afternoon, and we’re so rarely outside during the day now.  I’m walking about two steps ahead of him – I always am, because he always opens doors for me.

There’s a girl walking past us; I don’t pay much attention to her, except that when Eric quickens his step to catch up with me and starts to lean in to say something, I think he’s going to talk about her.

She’s really not that cute. Not enough to catch his attention, I think.

He leans closer to me, almost close enough to whisper except it’s hard to whisper when you’re walking, and we’re still walking to the car.  His voice is low, though; it’s a secret.

“You have a really cute butt,” he says, and takes an affectionate swipe at me.

“She has a really cute butt,” I think I hear, but only for a second.  I start to laugh and grab his hand, even though we’re at the car and it’s keeping him from going to the drivers’ side. 

“I love you,” I say, and I mean it.