Help

I can't sleep.

It's gotten to that time of night where the nightmares are so vivid I don't need to sleep to see them, pictures painted on the eggshell curve of closed eyelids.

The desire to sleep, to be gone, to leave is present in all of me that is conscious and rational. It's in those sleepy remains of me that want to be okay, that want to focus forward.

But the feral creature that is more and more unearthing herself from my bones, from the unwinding, fraying edges of my DNA is awake. My muscles have knit together too tight, and I'd focus on breathing but the only thing to count with in the dark is my heartbeat, and that is pounding in my ears too-fast, furiously.

I can't sleep.

I can smell my own fear. I can smell it, an itching sort of smell that climbs over my shoulders and acquaints itself with the curve of my spine. There's a shaking far off, in my hand, my right arm, but I can't go there. I'm a torso, a nightmare, a cluster of screaming, panicking organs.

I am fear incarnate, terror personified.

I am locked in the dark, noisy silence, and I am going to die here for I cannot escape.