I can't sleep.

I have to be awake in five hours, but it's of no matter because I can't escape my waking mind right now.

I recieved word this morning that I got a short story published; I've published poems, but this is my first story, and I'm very excited.

So excited, I can't sleep.

The story is loosely based on someone I knew in college. The dialogue is just how we would talk; the tension is familiar to a good amount of people I used to know.

I keep thinking of all the stories of the people I used to know, the person I used to be.

I keep thinking of all the stories I could tell, and I've been working on one recently.

Tonight, I sewed until 9; then I hung out with my husband; then I worked on my story until now.

Now, I'm thinking of all the stories I've hidden around our home. All those journals. All those old letters. 

Today, while I was reading Carver, Tim told me I've had some good success as an artist this week. 

Later, as we walked through the grocery store, putting food back on the shelves that we couldn't afford, Langston kicking his legs in the cart and a storm about to break outside. We're living the life of artists, we said. Artists that work over forty hours a week. We are so broke. We laughed. It's not the same as it used to be, Tim said. We are happy, but we want more time. 

We do things in hopes we will get it, but it keeps going. 

I get sad about the world, the world we are leaving to Langston; Tim tells me it is better than it has ever been. He gives me reasons why. I don't know if he believes those reasons, but I married him because he does that. He is perpetually love; he perpetually gives kindness, thought, balance... 

I think of how I used to think that screaming the loudest meant safety. 

Tim tells me to tell the stories; he begs me to write them. He says no one could ever believe they're not fiction. 

But those stories turn me into a historian; they remind me of wasting away my twenties; being devoured by people that were weak and cruel. 

I don't know if I want those stories. 

I remember hating Molly Peacock for a long time after I read her nonfiction book. I remember hating her for her sister's sake; there were so many excuses.

I'd like to stare straight at something and write it.

I'd like a secret message.

I'd like to see something real that I'd seen some time previously, all those years folded on themselves,

all those years I spend away, chasing things. Being stopped all the time, all along by strangers giving me good things and ignoring them all.

I want to write the parts I know and forget then forget their truths.

I'd like to sleep tonight without dreaming.