Benadryl Nightmares - J.R. Harrington

Flowers bowing with the rain on their shoulders. Morning dew on the grass at the park, soaking your shoes. A single drop falling on your face doesn’t always predict the rain. A single fallen leaf doesn’t always mean autumn. The wind storms that destroyed the tree in the back yard, the chainsaw rending it into palatable blocks. 

When lightning flashes in distant skies, thunder follows to tell you how far away it is. Counting the seconds between the light and noise. Remember; in the barn when it rained, the tin roof clattered with sound. You never learned to fear the thunder. The day there was a storm and the power went out at school. 

Once you wrote down everything you could remember on square post-it notes. Once you wrote inspirational quotes on square post-it notes. They were pastel colors and they didn’t stick to the walls without tape. You wrote down song lyrics from your favorite band and arrayed them above your bed. 

There were blank white walls and ticking clocks. Slanted popcorn ceilings and fake hardwood. When the bedframe broke you laid your mattress on the floor. It made it easier to get out of bed in the mornings. You laid on the faux fur rug and your tears stuck grey strands of acrylic on your cheeks. 

Red dirt stuck in your shoes and stained your white shirts. The horses in the corral out front ran in circles, and the dog barked at them. Still you are stuck in that place. August memories. The mixing of dream and reality. Past and present blurring together. In a month you will not remember this day. 

The sand in your ears when you rolled down the great stretching slopes of the dunes. The shoes you had to get rid of because they were filled with pointy goatheads. The devil in those little thorns, horns. The Christmas when you were sleeping on an air mattress on the floor. The way you’d sink in as it deflated throughout the night. 

The skittering of mice on the cold floor. They would leave dog food pellets in the pockets of coats, shoes, backpacks left in the closet. Winter was strange without the mountains of snow you were used to. Colorado snows melt as quickly as they come. Dust devils chase you in the park up the street. 

Your brother’s heart palpitations. Your brother taking Benadryl, hallucinating and having seizures. The paramedics in your living room, the blue latex glove left on the carpet. Nearly crying on the phone. Missing checks with college money, unable to pay tuition until it comes. Starting doses and sleeping pills. 

Nights in vans, leaf blowers rigged to pour out smoke. Stoned and sleepless, burgers two nights in a row. They can’t get your brother to eat, all he wants to do is sleep. The playlist you made together, vaporwave so he doesn’t have to worry about singing along. Sleeping on the couch watching TV. 

You don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense. Can’t you have anything good? It’s your own fault you’re suffering, foolish choices and lost bets. Cherry soda and headaches, unpaid phone bills and fear deep in your chest. Good moments give way to the worst days of your life, the cyclical nature of karma.

Someone once told you that you must have been evil in a past life to deserve everything that’s happened to you. Something in your heart tells you that nobody deserves what happens to them. There’s an evil in the world that won’t stop attacking. The world is ending before your life has even truly begun. 

Brother was sleeping when you went to visit him in the hospital. You sat down and watched him breathe. He lay there with food on a tray in front of him, uneaten. You teared up. There’s nothing worse than fearing the death of another. Nothing worse than replaying the memory of him collapsing, seizing. 

The shape of the sleep that took you, the dangers in your dreams. Hiding in stairwells to smoke cigarettes, followed by mysterious men who maybe want you dead. The insistence of voices in your head that he can’t die, he isn’t allowed. Afraid in hospital armchairs, thin grey jacket over your arms. 

Washed out black hair dye, faded to purple and pink and brown. Bare nails, bare face. Curled into yourself as the van shakes, curled into yourself as he falls. Always curled into yourself, holding yourself taut to keep it together. Empty bottles of Benadryl found in his bedroom. 

Lemon drops sticking together in the bag. Cigarettes stolen from your friends, the ones you beg off your grandma when you leave her car. Chewing on rubber bracelets, playing card games at four in the morning. Literary dreams you’ve never given up on. Missing weeks of poems, the guilt every day. 

The pill box filled with four weeks worth of pills, waiting until you’re back up to your regular dose. The hallucinations in the corner of your eye in the month you spent unmedicated, black cats and faeries. Remembering the lamp broken in the winter, the shards of glass in the library carpet. 

Like it’s all just broken things, shards of a reality where everything’s okay. You only get the smallest pieces of goodness, slivers of kindness slipping through. The nights spent with friends and nights spent alone, typing into documents. There is no comfort in the grand reveal of your pains, but it’s good to get it out there. 

Your best friend snores and whimpers in his sleep, you shift and struggle to get comfortable on the hard floor of the van. The cigarette butts get tossed into an empty fire pit to burn out, your shoes sit in the driver's seat. The swigs of Malibu you took to wash down your antipsychotics, the smoke that invaded your eyes. 

That burn, the tears falling onto the couch. Wiping your eyes with the back of your hand. Watching animal videos and sobbing about something entirely unrelated, unable to let yourself cry for him. Watching the ambulance pull away from the kitchen window, finishing your dinner despite your lack of appetite. 

That night, falling asleep, you wished for God to give you one good thing to live for. You prayed on the car ride to van night, silently with your hands clasped together in the darkness. Unfamiliar music played and your best friend sang along in the passenger seat. It was warm, and in the morning the heat of the van became unbearable.

All the things you bought for school waiting for the day you move into your dorm. A promising future, a foreboding future. Bar shampoo scented peppermint, princess promises for the day you dye your hair in the dorm shower. A tiny sewing kit in case your clothing falls apart, makeup wipes and witch hazel. 

Always smiling when you pass a mirror, like trying to reassure yourself it’ll all be okay. Minecraft worlds with friends and family, wizard towers and cottages built and left behind. In Autumn your mother is coming and bringing everything you left behind, the warm clothes and CDs. In Winter your friend’s Australian boyfriend is coming to visit. 

There are still things to look forward to, even when it looks bleak. Even when your dreams try to reach out and strangle you, there’s Someday. Holding tight to the happy future, even when you’re afraid you may die someday soon. Is there a destiny for you? Is everything that’s happened just fate? 

Still wearing the same shirt three days later. The shorts you wore to bed last night, the ones you loathe wearing out because it reminds you of middle school. Those days in the trailer, those days in the city, walking home from school alone because your brother didn’t want to walk with you. 

Remember the campsite, listening to May Day Parade and staring off cliffsides, considering the end. All those little moments, wondering what came after the battle. The heroes, never happy, with those blazes of glory. Stories that end before they begin. Do you deserve what you have? Those promising things, animals in cages. 

Sky high dreams, unable to sleep for the stuffiness in your nose. Digging graves in the yard for dead birds found, cradling their cool feathered bodies in your palms. Wet hair and striped shirts, soaked shoulders. Lemon drops and scattered pictures on the bedroom floor. Unescapable truths. 

On the precipice of great things, looking over the edge. The bracelets you wear, the flannel that pulls them from your wrist when you go to take it off. Staring down fate, screaming here I am, where’ve you gone? Candied skies and isolated nights, fairytales you were told as a wee thing in bed. 

The way you and your siblings used to be inseparable; the slow drift apart. Ice cracking down the middle. Floating different ways in the lake of life, making choices that don’t mesh together. Your sister, your brother. The hospital, padded beds and food he won’t eat. Waiting for him to wake up. 

Save yourself the pain and refuse to be too hopeful, save yourself the sorrow and keep the fear deep in your chest. You don’t let yourself cry. Looking up to the sky and blinking until the film of tears dissipates. Second-guessing every little thing, the distant future and wide open past. Those little things you can’t quite recall. 

The doctor’s slavic accent, telling how he could have died. Tears bleeding into paper towels, mom on the phone telling him she’s flying out tomorrow. You don’t like thinking of your mom on a plane. The worry that it may crash is ever-present, more risks taken. All that stress in the back of your head, boiling over.

The tricky details of the thing, fine point brushes wielded for thin lines, a hair’s breadth gasping breath. Visitor badges from the hospital stuck to the back of your computer, dwelling there with your grandmother’s handwriting. Don’t mind the way it twists and turns and burns. Don’t mind the way it sticks to the fabric. 

Spilling your guts in the front yard before an appointment, gagging on smoke. Failure to find the confidence within, success at keeping the screams inside. The urge to walk into the corn and never return, the urge to run away from your failures. The clasps on the sleeves of your favorite jacket, undone and done up again. 

The currents pull you under, heavy shoes keep you still. You are sodden and sad, you are down trodden and mad. The rage in your bones will not leave, buzzing like bees. In the porch light moths congregate, and the toad living under the house jumps to catch them. Just a little damp thing, bumpy and lumpy. 

Paying the price for hope. Those moments where the dream felt stronger than anything, those moments where your wrist ached from writing so small on the pages; trying to fill them with meaning, rhyme and reason. Was it worth it? Was the impossibility of the dream worth the pain of reality? 

Catching yourself drowning in mere inches of water, inhale and sputter, lungs filled with fluid. Keeping yourself alive for the hope, the hope. It’s the only thing that makes it worth it, it’s the only solace in the darkness of the night. Smiling in the mirror, twirling hair around your fingers. Is there still time to be young?