Why lie awake in the middle of the night pondering the “what-ifs” and “why-didn’t-I’s” that link your imagination to the mistakes that haunt your slumber as you misread the tone of  “we need to talk” from Katie that made you fail to order the appropriate flowers placed atop the dark mahogany casket that became drenched in your mother’s salty tears; why lie awake during the moon’s curtain call clutching the wool covers that your dying grandma handed down while she laid on the stiff hospital mattress as snot dripped from her wrinkled nose and her frail arms were unable to wipe away the grime, meanwhile remembering that the leftover deviled eggs from Cousin Mel were left to sit on the cold stovetop collecting bacteria as you lie here awake, breathing in the stale air that begs for the breath of a fan to blow it through the closet stuffed with acrylic winter sweaters from Forever 21’s clearance section, a low-cut sequin top that you only wear when you know Mike the bartender will be working so he might give you enough free drinks to paint the world in happiness, and the tie-dye shirt you designed at the Sperry Senior High School end-of-the-year celebration when Katie first said, “I love you” while gazing into your eyes and tipping over the open paint container that left a green shade over the lower half of the shirt- so why lie awake when the sun has blacked out and the closet door is open because you couldn’t figure out how to look good in all black, and your legs are shackled down by the wool blanket forbidding you to slam the door that would stop the monster in your closet from lunging out and swiping its twenty inch nail daggers over your face, ripping your eyes out of their sockets thus forcing you to seek the best plastic surgeon in New York to hand you back your life so that one day, you can look into Katie’s chestnut brown eyes and vow that this time everything will be different, and so you won’t have to glue googly eyes to your sockets to diffuse the stares from children who point their dirt filled finger nails at your mangled blood-stained eye holes and even though you can’t see them you know they are pointing because “pointing is rude Jimmy” is echoed through the Aldi’s you shop at because it’s less busy than Whole Foods and will hopefully attract less attention from your dismembered face and life- so why lie awake when you could close your eyes and relive the last kiss with your past lover and dance with grandma in the lightness of Heaven while the world is dark and when you close your eyes you can be bright?