You’re Gonna Make Me Die

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• August 16, 2021

If you heard the screams from outside, you would have thought we were amputating his leg. My sister was tending to my nephew’s (6) scrapes, a total of three: one on his face, one on his hip and another on his elbow, from a collision on his scooter. My sister was changing his bandaid and my nephew didn’t want her to make any contact with the cut, yelling through tears, “YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME DIE!”

This is high level suburb drama in its finest form. I have to leave the bathroom because even though I hate to see my nephew cry or in pain, his exaggeration of the seriousness of a surface level wound was making me laugh, additionally, I just felt bad for my sister trying to do something as simple as changing a bandage for her young son turn into a hard struggle.

As an adult, I can’t stand the sight of blood, but actually I was braver when I was younger. Being a bit of a tree climbing adrenaline seeker, I had my share of falls, bloody knees and elbows. But the only thing I remember truly dreading and screaming about were splinters from our wooden deck, that mom would have to ply out with tweezers.

“YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME DIE!”

When I was getting epidurals for my neck, due to the pain from herniated discs, I was afraid the anesthesia wouldn’t knock me out and I’d wake up mid procedure unable to move (I had the same fear for other surgeries I had).

“Wait,” my friend said, “you’re afraid of not going to sleep as opposed to not waking up?”

Yes. I mean, are we not already living in dystopian nightmare? Prove me wrong.

Sleep and I are star crossed lovers. We never get it right. It’s always a struggle and sleep either comes in short episodes or all together too much of it. When I’m sleeping too much, I wonder, “am I depressed? Am I depressed or just catching up on sleep?” Not that it couldn’t be both.

My nightstand, with all the prescription drugs I’ve been written for rotten sleep, is starting to look like Heath Ledger’s flat. And while I don’t hang with the Olsen twins, I could have easily passed for their sibling back in my elementary years.

It’s miserable to be caught in the sleep trap— or lack there of, I should say. I could be laying there, trying to not take a sleeping pill tonight, reading, watching tv, smoking weed, debating if it’s too late to take a sleeping pill, debating what’s worse, not sleeping at all or having the “sleep pill” foggy hangover. And that’s all you want above all else at some point between three and four in the morning. Just to sleep. Nothing else. I look at the array of choices I have, the cocktails that could put me out and I so badly want my mind to shut off and my back to rest. I so badly want it. But I curse those orange little bottles too.

YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME DIE.

Haven’t there been too many days, followed by too many nights, haunted by loops and anxieties, that I would have invited death if it meant sleep. But it’s not so severe anymore. For I have pictures of my nephews and niece in my room and for every self destructing dagger their smiling eyes are gonna make me live.