When I was younger, I used to help my mom make her bed.

Well, maybe not help, but certainly dance around her and be present.

She would put on the fitted sheets, then I'd crawl up into the center of the bed. She'd fling the top sheet out

over me, the

sweet smell of fabric softener would

swELL under billowing linen.

The sheet would dome overhead

like the parachute we played with in gym class.



To the edge of this falling sky,

I'd see it pulled tight -

slightly wrinkled -

and all mine.

My own personal sky that so politely made finite my home of infinite selfishness.

The world is still much like this for me, today.

It is also lonely,

sad,

happy and content

all of the time,

never at all,

and all at once these days.



I look to the sky with its pale blue,

stained in the morning sun and become the new self today -

the one that I failed to be yesterday.



I look out at the iridescent navy blue sky and its white sand dollar moon,



and regrets again.



I have not changed.



I am still me.



The blue forever over our heads gives perspective -

on life,

self,

world.

The world is trapped under the blue top sheet that caps and clamps over us.

We cannot take it off.

The unfathomable fabric reaches out over, sinks down on us

and wrinkles in the distance

where it meets a fitted blue sea.



I can fill this eternity.

I can shrink into a grain of sand on the beach.

I can hold up Chicken Little's end of the deal

I am tall enough!



But now,

I lie between the tight sheets that trap me -

hold me in -

swaddling.



The sky has crashed.

It blinked down on my eyes - a closure of vision.

I sleep.