Now I lay me down to sleep...
Where?
on a bed of moldy straw
teeming with lice
with a threadbare woolen blanket
When you're a child, reading stories about prison camps
can give you a skewed sense of place.
I pray thee, LORD, my soul to keep.
How?
in a safe
under lock and key
draped with chains
Taken at face value, fairy tales and police shows
can give you a skewed definition of security.
Guard me through the starry night...
From what?
ghosts
demons
and disembodied hands
With no preparatory counsel, facing monsters alone
can give you a skewed understanding of independence.
And waken me with morning's light. Dear Jesus...
Each morning may arrive without fail;
but when the knowledge needed to confront loneliness, danger, and fear
is absent,
the confusion and uncertainties and terrors of the night
leave lines on a heart
that etch a map of abandonment
which is neither accurate nor inaccurate
and therefore inarguable in either direction.
YOU ARE READING
bedtime habits
RandomThis was meant to be a single poem. But there seems to be more coming.