I am Stephanie's bright blood.

[silverlining]

There’s something very beautiful about the stillness of my room right now. I spent the afternoon and evening being mandatorily sociable for a party my mom was throwing. I put on my dress pants and I sat on one end of our couch with my hands folded in my lap while groups of unidentifiable people who make me feel uncomfortable filtered around me. But the retreat I’ve made into my bedroom, with me all alone, the sounds of The Shins playing from my MacBook is just beautiful. I have an old lamp with a dirty shade turned on, giving everything a very soft olive glow. The disarray of all the mismatched wood furniture, angled in odd directions, some of it not appropriate to a bedroom, makes it like a fort. The tiniest details… the way one of my curtains is knotted around a lamp’s stem, the tarnished brass of my bed frame, the ancient bubble screen TV threatening to fall off my dresser, and the rumpled plaid comforter… It’s perfect. The sounds of Wincing the Night Away heighten it. The room is alive. It’s just sleeping. Breathing, silently slumbering. I feel like a child, full of wonder. Being watched over by its furniture and protected by its bedroom walls. I feel like I should be twirling. I feel like I should press my ear against my bookcase to hear it inhale and exhale. I feel like I should wrap myself in my comforter and dance erratically in the dark. I feel like I should be the thing in the middle of all the stillness that pierces it.