The incendiary crackle, simmer, BOOM of thunder rattles my apartment, sending teacups crashing to the ground, their dregs spilling out across the floor in ancient tongues. Letters pinned to the wall flutter as if whispered to intimately, and terror vibrates from my sternum, tearing me from sleep. I am split between the impulse to run, nightdress fluttering, to my parents bedroom and bury my head between them in that comforting, sleepy warmth, and to turn and cling to whichever ex-love I've conjured to the surface in my dreams. Reality cuts itself into my aortic palpitations and I'm reminded that I am a woman now. I am naked, twenty-three, and alone amongst a mountainous tangle of bed sheets and rational fears.
