Wrote this while tired

At around 9pm every night I develop a special kind of tired. Dizzy tired. Not slap happy or exhausted but just out of sorts. I will yawn in sharp gasps and my eyes will well with tears. My legs hurt and the arch of my foot gnaws through all the steroid shots. Through the custom fit insoles and stretches. I'll stutter and hug every throw pillow on the couch. "Let me rest for just 10 minutes," I'll lie to myself, my wife, my family. My life. I used to hobby. Now I pass out by 9:30pm.

As a youth I had a water bed. It was a hand me down from a neighbor who passed it in pieces over the backyard fence. Then my family rebuilt it piece by piece. We then went to the store and got new sheets for it. Ones specifically marketed as "for water beads," which at the time made us feel very sophisticated (it was at a Kmart but this was a find) but was truly a scam. It was a comforter.

It fooled people. I had no real chairs in my room so let's sit on the bed and...woah! What the fuck! It fooled relatives who thought it a wondrous novelty like the block of ice in a Hundred Years of Solitude. It fooled my dogs who jumped on it and just looked betrayed. My father sank into it before he died. I had a girl in my room once. Just the two of us. Water bed. And, nothing happened albeit yeah I hyped that up.

"On the water bed, man!"
"Wtf dude? Its Nora and I bet not"
"Man...damnit....fuck you"

In college I slept in a high loft. On the extra long mattresses meant for Japanese pod hotels. I can put my desk and dresser underneath it! My little 13" TV on top of the dresser. Saving so much space!

But I had no sheets. I slept on tapestries. Some given to me by friends as gifts and others I found around campus. I worked as a cleaner over the summer and we all scavenged dorms for items left behind. My entire late college lifestyle was a series of castoffs. The nicest thing I had was a bicycle i bought called Guildenstern.

My girlfriend came to visit one summer, driving straight in the night 6 hours from Ohio and saw the tapestries. The baby blue knitted rug over them. "Please change these or I will never sleep in the same bed as you again." I went to work the other day and she had gone to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a whole new set of sheets for me.

Made of bamboo fibers
Wow! Was there a white sale?
The fuck is a white sale?
My mom said the best time to buy sheets and towels was during a white sale. Was there one? Where did you go?

Years later I now sleep on a couch. Dizzy tired and hugging pillows. I ball up old hoodies for pillows and was up actual pillows into my arms. The dip where my body has worn the couch into a sad gravity prevents anyone from getting up from the couch without setting down their drink.  It is where I am dizzy tired.