Delicate Matters

In which my body makes it difficult to sleep, and ghosts haunt my bedroom

Delicate matters

A couple of days ago I pulled a muscle in my groin. Most of the day it's fine, a minor irritation, like a hangnail or a member of the city council. It's easy to ignore most of the time. Most of the time.

It's a problem at night, though. There is no comfortable position for me to lay down. I roll from side to side hoping to discover the one spot that puts no strain on the muscle, but I can't find it. Everything I do only makes it worse.

After twenty minutes I give up and decamp to my Ikea Poäng chair. I sat in this chair earlier today and was perfectly comfortable, never even thinking about the pulled muscle. So now I sit in the chair, pull down my sleeping bag from the cupboard and unzip it, putting my feet in the footbox so it won't slip off. Unfortunately, all of my tossing bed has inflamed something. Sitting is agony. I can’t stay here.

In the dim light of things charging the status indicator of a fan, I get up and pace back and forth in my bedroom. It is past midnight, and I wonder if I'll ever get to sleep.

As I pace I ponder. It's embarrassing to hurt down there. Then there's the worry that it's not a pulled muscle but something… more severe. Maybe I should call a doctor. I imagine explaining my discomfort to a cute young nurse as she takes my vitals: weight, pulse, blood pressure, temperature, oh and my groin hurts so much I can’t sleep. Imagining that conversation makes me mortified. I try not to think about the doctor any more. It’s nearly 1:00am. I continue pacing, back and forth and back and forth.

I pray while I pace and try not to look at my wristwatch. I pace, I pray about my job hunt. I pace, I pray about my writing. I pace, I pray about my physical discomfort and wanting to sleep. I pace, I pray about my children one by one. I pace, I pray in gratitude for every little thing I can be possibly grateful for. I pace, I pray, and slowly the pain subsides.

Eventually I pick up a notebook, turn on a tiny little light, and begin to write.

Another Least Bad Poem

Ghosts

Not just from my grandfather’s pen  
not my father’s belt buckle,  
not my grandmother’s copy of Little Women  
with her name in front written in spidery ink,  
and not the tablecloth embroidered with flowers  
at each corner, pink and yellow and blue,  
and too fine to use while we eat—  
our house is filled with ghosts.  
They followed us here from our last house  
that we sold when we moved for your job.  
My forebears come and go between visits  
to all of their other descendants,  
and I wonder what they think  
of these pants? Are they jealous  
of my collection of very comfortable shoes,  
or do they cluck their tongues, their spectral tongues,  
at my overlong hot showers, sending gallons  
of drinkable water down the drain? Do they pretend  
to eat the chocolate bar I hold in my hand  
and devour without noticing — do they imagine  
the texture of chocolate melting in their ghost mouths?  
Does my sixth great grandmother tell me  
to slow down as I drive, or wish I could speed  
it up and make things interesting?  
Do they want me to sleep more for my health,  
or are they “sleep when you’re dead”?  
Perhaps they say “sleep now, because  
we never sleep, never dream,” and they wish,  
more than chocolate, more than a race  
through the streets, to lay on a bed  
breathe deep, and drift, drift, drift.

For the record, I wrote the thing about my pulled muscle last week. Things are fine now, no doctor’s visit required.

All is well,

Jeff