Wave of Light

By Victoria Macedo

Pajamas on, feet tucked under sheets, socks off.
Lights out at 10pm.

Dark apartment, window open, breeze blowing through your eardrums.
Ambulance siren below.
Coming closer,
closer
gone.

Lights still out, it is now 10:05pm.
Dark apartment, eyes closed, mind open.
Mentally checking off all of the things you’ve completed today.
Satisfaction. Yet again.

*Ding*
Light bulb turns on.
Inside your brain.
It travels through your every thought, your every idea, your every worry, your every hope.
Anxious? Ecstatic? Crazed?
Only you know; but so you thought.
Your past revisited. Your present impermanent. Your future?
Unknown.

The light bulb is still on.
Its location is wherever you want to take it.
Wherever you need to take it.
For however long it needs to stay there.

It’s now 10:45pm.
Time continues to pass, but you have control.
Finally.

The light bulb dims but those waves are still rolling.
This time,
you’ve fallen asleep.