Every night my head hits the pillow that lay atop the thing we call a “bed”

My bed is all white with a pink headboard

My bed is soft and plump and molds to fit to my body

My bed is where I rest, the habitat in which I recover

The place where I think of all my imperfections

The place where I ask myself questions I’m afraid of asking normally 

My bed is the place where overthinking consumes me

My mind on rampage, 20 miles on hour, a record player that cannot stop spinning

A relentless, round the clock cycle of voices, and places, and people, and things

Moments and mistakes; trauma and sadness; anger and disgust; for myself and what I have done

The dirty looks exchanged from Sarah in second grade or saying the wrong thing to Peggy at the birthday party, or Ryan who just said I’m not good enough to make the team

The eyes in your mind staring into your soul pumping these mistakes through your head like a leaky gas pump, a raft with no nozzle to stop the air from releasing, my stomach in a pit and my pulse tensing

These thoughts swirling through my mind, reaching farther and farther back in time until-

Erosion, as I sink further into the mattress, my thoughts dissolve, but the residue of pain still resides

And once again I'm just a girl lying in her bed.