Limbo

The dreams that take place where you are currently sleeping are the worst. I could be lying in bed, and then off my alarm goes: I get up and head to the shower and nothing seems odd... until I look into the mirror and realise half my face is gone. Another alarm goes off, and I wake up again but this time for real.

I don't know if you've experienced those before, but I get that a lot. I'm not looking at my sleeping body in third person or anything, but it's an entirely different scenario taking place in the exact same room. The same furniture, the same placement of the books and bed and the like.

My thoughts rob me of my sleep sometimes, but they also rob me of sweet dreams. I got home at 2 last night, after ignoring the phone calls and texts from my parents at Pasir Ris and aunt and grandmother from Paya Lebar. I thought it was unfair for my parents to call Paya Lebar asking about me, but they were sleeping when I got home. They made my aunt and grandmother worry for me and left them to it while they go off into slumber.

Those were the last few things I thought of before I drifted off sometime after 3 in the morning. But my sleep never really lasts, because I was forced awake a while later: at 5:32 A.M. Maybe it isn't a coincidence but I'm not surprised by it anymore. I'm haunted by my own head and a heart that never got to beat.

In the afternoons I could sleep through an earthquake; at night the sound of my heartbeat is loud enough to keep my eyes wide open. I don't dare close them, to give way to the dreams that grow from the tiniest of thoughts. It exhausts me, and I think it's taking a toll on my dream-self too.

During my very few 5-minute naps before my alarm at 8 this morning, I saw my/her reflection. The depth of her dark circles, how the skin beneath her eyes seemed to have sunken into her sockets. I can't get the image out of my mind, it really did feel like my own body standing in front of that mirror.

I talked to my mother, about how she wanted all the money that I have or lack thereof. How I walked into my bedroom to see her in my chair, waving my wallet around and accusing me of lying to her. How she'd wiped my bedroom clean of any notes or coins, taken the gold necklace my grandmother gave me for my 21st, and then pointing to my face and laughing.

My elder brother threw a tissue box at me, hitting me square on the head, I swear it might have left a dent. His daughter, my niece, was standing between us and I felt my body move toward her. He rushed to carry her away and looked at me like i was the most hideous monster he'd ever seen... which maybe I was.

I sat with my aunt and grandma, who told me they'd made chicken nuggets for the foreign workers from downstairs. I took a bite and they were burnt like hell, the black bits melting like dust against my tongue. I watched my aunt go into the lift, a cat following her; the doors closed before the cat could fully go in, and the lift's departure gave me detached feline legs.

I woke up at 8:38 A.M., with my mother and grandmother stand at the edge of my bed. My mother threw my towel at me and yelled at me to get to work, you useless motherfucker, you're already late. But me, I'm never late, I'm always awake before my alarm even goes off, I'm never late, I stick true to my routine.

I woke up again at 8:00 A.M., to an empty bedroom, to the sound of rain. I'm still sane enough to tell the difference between reality and the dream world, but with my worsening eyesight I'm not sure how long that'll last. God if you exist help me, get me out of this limbo, this in-between world that is giving me the insanity I worked so hard to get rid of.