He laid still in his bed, clutching onto the book of poetry in his hands as if it were the only thing that kept him from spiraling. Sean had never been one to read poetry. These were the only set of poems he actually had.
            He brought the book face to face with himself, this sudden movement causing the room to shift…
                        to turn…
                                    …to twist.
            He thought he would vomit. Had there been anything in his stomach at all, he might of. But all there was was the torrential taste of tequila on the tip of his tongue.
            Sean read the title of the book, its letters shifting as the room had—Mopes from the Mossco. That didn’t sound right, he thought. He flipped through the pages of the book until landing on one that had been dogeared by her. His eyes lazily traveled down the stanzas and their lines until running into ones that had been heavily underlined—again, by her.
            He had never been one to read poetry, but Alice had.
            As Sean read the lines, his cheeks flushed like burning coals, his blood boiling out the alcohol in his veins for a sobering moment. He shut the book, looked one last time at the title before throwing it across the room—Poems from the Cosmos.
            His moment of clarity blurred as the whole room…
                                                …shifted
                                                                                    …violently…
                                                            …he spiraled…
                                                                                                …as she had.
            His heart began to race as he wished for a brief moment that he had never read that book. Never showed it to Alice. Never let her keep it. Never let her give it back. Never answered that call. The one where she told him she was spiraling, as she often felt she was. Never answered the call. The one where her parents told him she was gone, but he didn’t believe them—not at first.
            Sean had never been one for poetry, but always one fascinated by the cosmos. How it gave unto itself. How you could be moving so fast and, at the same time, feel completely still. Sean closed his eyes and saw nothing but darkness behind them. Still it moved. He wondered if this was how Alice had always felt.
            He laid there for an indiscernible amount of time, thinking back on those lines underlined by Alice before falling asleep.

Amongst the flora and the fauna,
I lay still
Though, something still inside me moves within the vastness,  
143 miles in a second

Inspired by “Your Deep Rest” by The Hotelier (definitely check out the song).

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