The room is warm and small plumes of heat file through the air conditioning vents as I lie staring at the ceiling of blistered chocolate paint. I try to find sleep beneath the lids of my lumbering exhaustion, yet somehow feeding an unrelenting consciousness, the last cigarette on the bedside table seems to call for a flame only my fingers can give it. So with every passing second and moment in which dreams spin a zoetrope of leaping sheep, my body aches from these cold bones that flutter towards an ancient warmth. Blindly I stretch towards the lone cigarette, my arm slipping from beneath my heavy head to be greeted with a breath of warmth still lingering… around the ashtray I used only thirteen minutes ago. The last smoke now dwindling as the sun had done only hours ago. A concluding burn of orange and reverie, then a final moment in dark emptiness.
From across the wall, the clock stared at me sinking towards a dreaded two and in due time my fingers found the edges of the blue printed box. I begin to trace its shape as I tease myself to a warm fix of noxious stillness to satiate my veins again. A flickering relief from the emptiness that curdles around me. And as if I had never let go, my fingers flick the sparkwheel to fashion a stream-like fire into the dank air, succeeding the room swelling sounds of clicking metal. Now, I’m no longer tainted by the leaping sheep of folktales that declare sleep, so I swim through the lucidity of verity- of woe lying too close to me. Though I let out a laugh of irony looking at the untouched space beside my body in bed, feeling my heart freefall during the seconds I analyze the sheet’s crisp state. Just as crisp as the cigarette I roll back and forth between my two fingers, feeling its contents as the flame engulfs the last bit of my company. Smoke files down my throat, inching its way through the dampness, crawling on all fours down my airway into the home of my lungs where it will cradle itself for a moment until I let go. Until I let go. Provisionally, heat caresses my insides and a hint of warmth bubbles within my blood bringing my heart back to a beat. My lungs to a breath. My stomach to a fullness. And then I let go, like blowing out a flame I watch the smoke stray from my mouth smudging the dank air. Echoing my movements, both pillows scrunch beneath my head as I trail the plume’s path across the chocolate ceiling where it hovers. Where it will lie until the blur finally fades from my sight deserting me in the desolate coldness again.
That craving for warmth never fades as I puff the dwindling cigarette from my mouth only to be left with the weight of exhaustion’s cold limbs resting atop my body. Each night, wishing I dreamt of the limbs with a heartbeat, I close my eyes finding that zoetrope of sheep again; counting the minutes until chill won’t creep on like ghastly company that never lets me go. Because manifested morning and morning again, the warmth I crave always loses its grip on me like summer loses its grip on autumn. Like the sun loses its hold to the moon and the warmth finally fades. I wish the warmth of death didn’t cradle me, but instead–
