Sleep story · cozy, rain
Sleep story: an attic room, when you feel fine and want to stay that way — for a restless night
Sloping ceiling, rain on the roof a foot above your head.
Reading it yourself. Back to the audio version.
The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.
The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window.
Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out. Let your ribs stop working so hard.
Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs. Let your hands be completely still.
There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night. The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den.
Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.
If you feel numb, that's a valid thing to feel. Nothing to fix. If you feel restless, that's a feeling, not a failure.
Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.
Leave it there. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer.
The words can start to blur now. They will find their own way out. Let the quiet be boring.
Feeling fine is a good reason to do this, not a reason to skip it.
No more sentences. Just the weight of you in the bed.