i woke up under my bed

  With the sunbeam hounds howling over the horizon, it seems the moon has yet again forgotten its promise to swallow me. Another day I'm forced to live through...  

  "Another day to smile!" I profess for the whole street to hear.

  My words bounce off the tightly shut houses surrounding me. Those heavy rays of light have not yet heated this icy air, but that should make my walk all the more fun. I slip my hands into my navy-blue shorts and hook the corners of my sagging curtains up into a smile. One step forward, and a pebble dashes under the ball of my foot, jabbing through the worn protective layer of my sock. I bite the edge of my tongue and continue to walk. It lets go after several more steps. My twin dehydrated eyes whine in unison for a deep sleep, knowing full well they can never get one again, while my mouth carries the taste of something it killed. A stray step into the flattened yellow grass of someone's yard eases the aches in my soles...barely—completely! I feel fantastic now! My socks slip in the mud. As is routine, my whole body and the whole world fights against me on my morning walks. I take a deep breath. The chilling air floods my insides and creates a flurry under my chest as I fall deeper in love with this painful morning.

  I mutter to myself, "I'll go to the swings. They're at the playground, right? Yeah," I nod. "We used to go to the park, didn't we?"

  Having a charmingly trashy one-story house located near the center of a maze has made for tediously pleasant walks to get anywhere. Like many other mornings, I cut through peoples' un-fenced yards to travel faster because it would get scary alone with my mind so long—because it's fun to shake things up! No matter how many times I've walked through this neighborhood, I always see something new and exciting. A glove on the pavement, a baby weed, a piece of trash flattened and muddy, or maybe even an animal could be waiting for me to pass them by. No one but dogs are awake and give a care about me trespassing. Not even Mom and Dad are up at this hour, not that they'd notice me missing anyway. They're too busy crying.

  I bump my elbow against the side of a car, shocking me into realizing I have both stumbled into a row of front yards, and that my arm has gone slightly numb from the cold. Still I walk. Still I ache. Still I smile.

  Suddenly, the buzz of hundreds of insects grows from whispers to screams. I swat the air by my ears yet nothing changes. Tossing my head this way and that to find them, I see I am no longer walking across driveways, but along the walkway of a massive four-lane bridge arching over what smells sweetly of water and is crawling with traffic. I halt, everything pixelates, and my head bubbles. My breaths puff in huge balls of frozen smoke faster than a train and ice cubes drip down my neck. Was I just running? Why? No, I would remember doing something like that. I peek over my shoulder. A colorful speckle of houses crowded all nicely in a square stretches behind me, and light cuts through the traffic to creep into the corner of my eye. I imagine the sun is bleeding pastels into the horizon, but I don't care to check.

  "There's the neighborhood. I think. Wasn't the park in the neighborhood?"

  I pivot back to the bridge and swallow the heavy ball of nerves tangling behind my teeth. Why would I want to come here? Stepping forward, my body trembles at my courage to explore this new route.

  "Yeah! An adventure!"

  My own deep voice doesn't do much in bringing my childish optimism to life. It's also quaking now from this arctic air. The wind slaps around my white T-shirt and playfully messes up my dirty-blonde bedhead. I'm now overwhelmingly conscious of every single step I take, and I feel each confident stride forward is only inching me along this eternal soul-sucking pathway. My steps wobble as I'm tossed between the wall beside the highway and the bars beside the sky. Despite my trying, and smiling, and strong spirit, and great example, and best friend, and good listener, and super smart, and everything, and all of it, the path isn't getting any shorter. My brain is kicking and sloshing around in my skull until it bleeds. I stub my numb toe against the edge of a sidewalk slab and stumble a few steps. The dirt in between my toes shifts in their own creatively predictable way. I narrow my eyes and curse—and sigh out of relief that I am okay! I'm enjoying this walk.