6 AM

photo by: Scott Braidman

It is the early morning of my wedding. My sister shifts beside me. I ask if she is awake, but she doesn't stir again. I roll over, pulling and pushing my eyelids to reach one another, but they refuse, popping open like compressed springs. I recite the alphabet and count fat sheep as they hobble over my mind’s makeshift picket fence. 

At 7AM, I get out of bed and slip down the stairs to my parents' room. "I'm too excited to sleep!" I whisper. My father chuckles a hoarse, crusty murmur and pulls back the fluffy white comforter. I jump in, feet first. "You're not going to go back to sleep." My mother tells my closed eyes. She's right. I’m going to lay amongst feathers, cotton, familiar skin and morning breath, giggling about the day we are about to turn into memory.