Bed

When my left hand
goes completely numb
I fall into my bed
and lie there between sleep
and pain,

aware of 
a third in the bed with us

whose name is Fear.
Is this a stroke,
is this the end
of something, or the beginning

of the end? Fear
chatters on and on. 
I lie there among
states of being,
tingling and fretting,
and it’s not hope

that gets me back up later
but the discomfort
of how crowded
that bed’s become,

how noisy it is in here.