Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl

Insomnia is a curious ailment. For the first week, you feel like you're on a constant energy high and you are hyper-aware of everything - your own thoughts and feelings, the reactions of the people around you, the insignificance of everything. The second week, you no longer feel alive; you are a zombie without any real thoughts, you are a vampire sucking your own soul. After the first two weeks, you no longer exist inside yourself, dead or alive. You are a floating presence, watching your body do things from afar. You no longer are.

"I've seen you sleeping in class recently." That's my Spanish teacher, who's actually from Spain; his voice is accented and silky smooth, like rich vanilla cream and liquid gold in my ears.

I don't say anything as I sit blankly at my desk, the only student left in the classroom. I know I haven't been sleeping, though, because I've been trying oh-so-desperately to. I'll lay my head on the desk resolutely, but sleep never comes and I hear every word that everyone says.

"Is there...trouble at home?"

"...No." Every time a kid sleeps in class or acts out in school, the educators want to blame it on a troubled home life. But that's not always the case.

"You know, you can always talk to the counselor if you're having problems," Señor Castillo says with a sigh, "Or you can ever talk to me, no matter what it is. I know I'm just an old man, but I'm always willing to help." This is just a joke, I know, because he is certainly not old; he had his twenty-ninth birthday two weeks ago and looks younger than that, even. I can't even manage to return his charming, easy-going smile.

"I can't sleep," I blurt out emotionlessly, "My problems are inconsequential."

"No, señorita," he calls me and I nearly melt, despite my zombified state, "Your problems matter. You matter." He lets me leave then and I jump at the opportunity; I can't handle this and I can't handle him (but I wish I could).

-

Even though I have long left my Spanish teacher, his words are echoing and mirroring themselves in my brain. They have become fuzzy and jumbled and I simply want to find a way to sleep without resorting to talking to my incredibly attractive Spanish teacher about it. It could only end in embarrassment, I'm almost positive.

My mom brings me a mug of piping hot vanilla chai tea and a plate of sugar cookies. It's nearly always Christmastime in our house, but it never bothers me; Christmas makes my mom happy and helps her cope with her stress.

"Was school good?" she asks me as she sits down on the couch next to me and throws a fleece blanket over the both of us. She's a good mother, she really is - at least in the departments where it really matters. Before high school, I rarely was able to have friends over, because their parents deemed my mother irresponsible and unfit to be a parent. They didn't want their kids being like me, without any restrictions. But she's good at nurturing me and loving me, and what more could you ask for in a mother?

"No. School sucked," I finally tell her after I nearly scald off all of my taste buds with a tiny sip of my tea.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not right now," I exhale slowly, biting the head off of a snowman sugar cookie.

"When?" she wants to know, because my mom fervently believes in sharing all of your thoughts and feelings with your family.

"I'll let you know," I pause, thinking of something to say that will make my mom light up like the Christmas lights that she so deeply adores, "So. I met a boy." Suddenly, she's gushing for me to tell her more, even though there is really nothing to tell. I haven't spoken to him and he's only said two sentences to me ever. On top of that, I've only seen him once in my life. I know nothing about him, not even his name or his age or his favorite band. I know that he likes Vonnegut and that's almost enough.

The warm tea and the closeness of another human being is making me sleepy and I welcome the feeling as my mother turns on the television to watch reruns of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour (one of the few non-Christmasy things she seems to do). As my lids slip closed, I can almost feel relief washing over me like the wave of an ocean; it feels like the first time I've slept in weeks. It's too good to be true and yet, it is.

No dreams, no nightmares.

Just a perfect, uninterrupted slumber.