waking up

Understandably, she questioned all of them; the noises that erupted from the back of her throat when she cried, the monsters under the bed and the demons in the closet, the harsh realization that her nothingness could've suited her better or suited someone else worse. When she was caught in rainstorms in September, like the kind that sent the homeless people into store fronts with their left-over highs, that broke umbrellas like they didn't have any substance whatsoever, that made the mothers have to sit up late with the kids who cried at the crashing noises from the sky, ("It's God bowling," they would assure them, "don't you think it sounds like he got a strike?" The dogs darted around the living room, barking as the father puffed lazily on his cigar and wondered when he became a man of a house of mediocrity. He still remembered that night in Cancun.) she would sit outside and let her cigarette go limp instead of smoking it to the end. She would let her clothes get see-through and then she would stare at her reflection in the streaking windows of her building. She would wash her make-up off in the run-off and see if the acid rain could give her any sort of a trip. 
She had been caught in a storm last night, but the lightning was so hypnotic that she forgot to get all cold and wet, but stood on the stoop of the coffee shop that she was waiting in. She had been there for hours, her lipstick fading in potency as she cycled through cup after cup of bitter reality. She smoked all her tobacco, so she settled for a fat joint that she rolled in the open in the middle of the cafe. Nobody stopped her though, because her hair was plastered down, and the tear stains couldn't be distinguished from the destruction that the rain had done to her face. In fact, a man dropped his lighter on the table and touched her shoulder in the veiled attempted to promise that it might be alright someday. She didn't look up at him because his hand was too heavy and she knew she was really only waiting for one touch. 
"Make a wish and then I'll stop crying," she said to the barista who passed her as she was putting the joint between her lips. 
"I wouldn't know what to wish for at all." 
"I hope that you're happy," she wished for him. 
"I hope that my rent check doesn't bounce..." he said. He hadn't heard her.
The sunset was blackening the night. She felt like she might as well walk home. 

"Beautiful...." the voice was far away, filtering through a nights worth of cinematic distortions, "beautiful, it's okay." She fluttered her eyes open and stared into the semi-darkness. There was a glow around the room and the voice that seemed to come from the covers emerged like a miracle, wrapping itself all around her. Warm, and comfortable, she fit just right in the arms that encircled her torso to tuck her into the shadowy corners of their mutuality. "You were having a nightmare." She kissed the velvet skin. "I'm right here."

The alarm clock was unusually jarring this morning.
Her bed was still empty.
Her eyes were still wet.
She threw herself onto the carpet and settled for examining the underside of her cabinet.
Waking up is much, much harder alone.