awoke in the fetal position

arms pulled in tight, head bent inwards, knees to my chest

shivering where the blanket had been twisted around me so badly it ceased being a blanket

it took on the form of a bondage device

shaking from the fan blowing on me, the thirty seven degrees outside

the frantic realization i am tied up

i lifted my head, chattering jaw sounding off like a string of black cat fireworks tossed into a garbage can

waited the now accustomary thirty seconds for my vision to focus upon waking

probably three seconds

feels like forever

i know those bare white walls

the hundreds of books

safe and secure

the fitful night’s sleep always ends with eyes that don’t want to be open opening

hatching

into a world they are not prepared to enter

the birds are fighting in the bush outside the window again

my premature birth caused by them

outside stress induced labor

i needed to be quick before my water breaks

the diabolical blanket trap is one of my own restless undoing

the blanket is not quite big enough to tuck in at the end of the bed

but i never sleep without it at home, or well without it period

not since i got it when i was three

my parents and i were at the laundromat

i was sitting in a chair, bored

had been playing with cars outside but my aunt showed up

now i sat as she whispered to my parents

i heard the word fire

my aunt stayed to watch our clothes and we rushed to the car and got home in time to see the firetrucks still spraying water on the shell of home

everyone cried

but i liked the fire

the cool trucks

i just sat and happily watched the chaos

calmly unaffected

we went to a friend’s to stay the night

i only remember three things of the stay

best mac and cheese, captain america with his shield on the front of his motorcycle, and everyone asking if i was okay

yeah

if i could have more mac and cheese and see what cap is about to do in peace

a couple days later i got the blanket that was now binding me in place

two things stood out to me as the reverie swept over me

people pay good money to be tied up like this, it was truly a well done job of restless tossing and turning

and my fire truck

i had gotten a firetruck, a badass metal one with real moving ladder and shiny red metal frame

the ladder was white and had a wheel that i turned to raise it up and down

it was the most amazing fire truck in the world

there was a little white grease that kept the ladder moving smoothly

the boxy design with sharp corners, a real heft to it

i loved it

when they went to get what wasn’t destroyed in the fire it was all i wanted

i remember them coming back without it

my mother said it was still too hot to grab

it was all i asked for at christmas, well, to this day, and i have always blamed the seeds of depression on never receiving a replacement

i internalize my feelings and thoughts to a degree some would call

unhealthy

so now i trapped in my security blanket and shivering

thinking of that damned firetruck that ruined my childhood

cold

miserable

still tired

and i have to pee

so i started to write instead

about the day everyone realized there was a disconnect between me and the world

the boy who never shed a tear over the burning house, just the loss of his toy fire truck

and the broken man that still sleeps with his lion blanky

the man child

still waking up in the fetal position, needing to grow up, seeking the piece of something to grant the peace of something else

now in to coffee

and videogames

adult things for an adult male

born fully formed like a lumpy god, spilled forth from the womb of sleep into an empty world

the definition of inchoate

still waiting for that firetruck