Thermostat

Last night I managed to sleep with ice cubes in my head and I was sprawled out in suspended animation somewhere warm and the kick and hum of the heat vent was a noisy breeze that ran itself awkwardly through my hair and across my shoulders. The years all fill to the brim and then spill into each other and there’s no way to separate them once they mix and so I’m six and I’m in the womb and I’m nineteen wrapped up in farm animal sheets having my first dream that I can remember. My house has turned into the inside of a clock and I am climbing through gears hoping that I won’t fall through and get my ribs crushed into a million tiny bone needles. It’s six in the morning and the ice cubes have gone and now it’s just a million pounds of water vapor trying to leave my head and the light creeps in through the window and people start chatting outside and I am thrust into another day and all I can smell off myself is stale lemons and limes.