When I sleep, I have nightmares

My nightmares are real, it's all happened before.

When I sleep, I can see his eyes, staring into mine, reaching in for my darkest secrets, watching for the pain in mine as he takes what little dignity I have left

I can feel his hand around my throat, the real choking, the scary choking, the kind where you can breath but it still hurts, the blood still doesn’t have oxygen

When I sleep, I can hear his voice, feel his hot breath on my ear as he tells me I deserve it

There is no pinching myself awake, no emergency landing,

It’s just me and him.

I haven’t seen his face in so long my brain has started to replace him with others.

My ex-boyfriend, I see his blue eyes, cold, stare into me like the ice for which they are colored,

My best friend, I can feel his hand wrap around my throat, I can feel my brain become numb as I am powerless to stop him,

My love interest, he is thousands of miles away but in that dream, in that instance he has never been closer to my body, his breath on my ear makes my spine tingle.

I am trapped, sentenced to a lifetime struggle with sleep, a struggle that no amount of warm milk and soft blankets can solve,

Rather, it is a struggle matched by therapists and pills that I can’t afford, fights I can not win,

Even through this, sometimes being awake is harder than being asleep,

So with that,

Goodnight, moon.