bedtime habits

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.