Laying Down to Sleep (Anxiety's Lullaby)

There were ghosts under the bed.
For years they whispered silent threats into the inner ear of a cowering child.
They started fires that consumed the world in the back of a heartbroken mind.
They spilled the iced coffee shame of sinful stains deep into wintered cracks;
Frost heaving into sleepless sighs of apathetic contentment
Worn as a threadbare jacket against a tempest.

He laid in bed alone, stirring watered down memories of warm embraces,
Sunny words percolating through the filter of the shadows of 2 AM,
Just enough to cut an eye hole through the burlap of time and space,
Fantasy his peeping tom into the golden lit swirling colors of falling leaves,
To watch once more something behind her stare light up with the joy of being alive
Before walking back to the car and driving through the desert pavement
Back to the cold reality of city snowfall.

Back to the empty caress of a lonely bed
And the pseudo-flame of whiskeys kiss
Singing him to sleep within his prison of regret
And the consistent promise of a new sunrise.

There were skeletons in the closet.
But...
They’ll still be there in the morning.