ACT III

Alien / Moments From his Mangled Head pt. 2

When you’re dragged into this new world, you expect certain woes to act as checkpoints on the journey with your recovering heart. You expect the insomnia, the tight chest, the constant ‘you look tired’ remarks. You expect the numbness, the heavy eyes, the nights spent staring at the ceiling for hours on end, so much so that you memorise each individual micro-blemish that makes it up.
You’d even be sensible in expecting some of your anguish to stem directly from the other side of your bed that has frozen over, becoming more difficult to be in the vicinity of as each night passes. You blast the heater, you pour boiling water, you even try melting it by the touch of your warm skin. You walk away with frostbite. Your bed sits unmelted, unmoved, unphased.
But it’s okay, you expected this.

The things you don’t expect are far worse.
The moments you don’t expect are far worse.

You don’t expect the moment where you give up and get used to how you feel.
You don’t expect the moment where you begin to crave this phoney solace.
You don’t expect the moment where all your dependable coping mechanisms malfunction in unison.
You don’t expect that moment
The moment where the idea of them sleeping beside you
Now feels
Alien.