another sleepless night without real dreams. my son, every half hour sitting up in bed and banging. sometimes cackling. tonight doesn't look too good for us or him. hours later, about to drift to sleep. that's when the squirrels begin gnawing and scratching in the eaves. the sound is unsettling. michael pounds the walls hoping to disturb them. i pray calvin stays asleep. at three a.m., just after finally going under, i hear the scream. this time it's muffled and brief. still, i know its meaning: our son is seizing. we rush into his room. unhook his bed's netted canopy. let down the safety panel. protect his spasming head and wrists and feet. call his name trying to reach him in his seizure-dream. blood and saliva begin trickling from between his lips. when it's over, i gently nudge his mouth open to find the wound. a bitten tongue or cheek. a pool of blood lets loose a scarlet stream. i think of rivers rushing to the sea. i stroke his moonlike face with love and sorrow. then i slowly syringe cbd oil inside his opposite cheek.
before i crawl in with him, i drink a glass of water and pee. outside, it's crisp and black and in the teens. pinned in the sky behind the glass i see orion. i think of emily's little ronan, gone now for how long i don't remember. i used to see orion as his guard. perhaps he's out there in the stardust.
in bed with calvin. michael tucks in a pair of curled-up bodies. in my arms calvin goes to sleep. for me, shut-eye remains elusive. in darkness, i think of little charlotte who has influenza and is fighting off pneumonia—a grave danger for our fragile children. i send a little mojo off to colorado.
my thoughts tumble to our mate who died last august. in our care, he left behind stacks of plastic bins and cardboard boxes. clothes and tools, gloves and socks and shoes. in my sleepless dreams i'm back to sifting through them. a wide-brimmed hat with snaps attracts me. my head is swimming in its blackness. in search of him, i sink my nose into a dress shirt. it smells of soap and plastic. i find him nowhere in its cool soft fabric. it hurts to miss him. he was like a brother-son to me. he has returned to stardust. never again to feel pain or be sleepless. now he is beautiful carbon. he wore that color often. he chose it.
it's not long before my boy awakens. just as my sleepless mind is dreaming of our new year stroll beside the ocean. we were three, not counting calvin. in a perfect world he would have been there with us, skipping, running, tempting white waves crashing at his feet. sprinting up then boomeranging with some precious found thing. a rock. a shell. driftwood. a reed. i picture him making long shadows and sandcastles and scraping his name into the beach—as many grains of sand as stars and planets. but he cannot do those things. instead again he stayed at home, his brain planning its next assault on him. i can smell impending seizures on his breath and fingers, on his drool-soaked shirts and robe. still, we can't escape their orbit. my billion-year-old carbon child, though reeling through his life half-blind with seizures, is not yet stardust. he's there at home to greet us. i hold him closely. i dream of calvin even when i'm sleepless.
before i crawl in with him, i drink a glass of water and pee. outside, it's crisp and black and in the teens. pinned in the sky behind the glass i see orion. i think of emily's little ronan, gone now for how long i don't remember. i used to see orion as his guard. perhaps he's out there in the stardust.
in bed with calvin. michael tucks in a pair of curled-up bodies. in my arms calvin goes to sleep. for me, shut-eye remains elusive. in darkness, i think of little charlotte who has influenza and is fighting off pneumonia—a grave danger for our fragile children. i send a little mojo off to colorado.
my thoughts tumble to our mate who died last august. in our care, he left behind stacks of plastic bins and cardboard boxes. clothes and tools, gloves and socks and shoes. in my sleepless dreams i'm back to sifting through them. a wide-brimmed hat with snaps attracts me. my head is swimming in its blackness. in search of him, i sink my nose into a dress shirt. it smells of soap and plastic. i find him nowhere in its cool soft fabric. it hurts to miss him. he was like a brother-son to me. he has returned to stardust. never again to feel pain or be sleepless. now he is beautiful carbon. he wore that color often. he chose it.
it's not long before my boy awakens. just as my sleepless mind is dreaming of our new year stroll beside the ocean. we were three, not counting calvin. in a perfect world he would have been there with us, skipping, running, tempting white waves crashing at his feet. sprinting up then boomeranging with some precious found thing. a rock. a shell. driftwood. a reed. i picture him making long shadows and sandcastles and scraping his name into the beach—as many grains of sand as stars and planets. but he cannot do those things. instead again he stayed at home, his brain planning its next assault on him. i can smell impending seizures on his breath and fingers, on his drool-soaked shirts and robe. still, we can't escape their orbit. my billion-year-old carbon child, though reeling through his life half-blind with seizures, is not yet stardust. he's there at home to greet us. i hold him closely. i dream of calvin even when i'm sleepless.
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