There are things that are easier to say in the dark. Things that bubble and ferment inside until we’re drunk with distended stomachs. Exhaustion rolls in like the tide. We beg for sleep and prostrate ourselves before the deities of the dark. When that fails, twisting and turning, we bump into each other and all that bubbling and fermentation overpowers our barriers. In the dark it’s just easier to say,

“I love you.”

“I’m not sure I’m on the right path.”

“My brain is always on fire and I can’t find a bucket for water.”

“I think I’m wasting my life.”

“I’m not sure she’s going to make it.”

“Welcome to the Dead Moms Club.”

“I’m not sure we’re going to make it.”

“I wish you had more faith in me.”

“I wish you had more faith in yourself.”

We brush our fingertips across each other’s collarbones as our secrets spill into the moonlight where they are seen but not exposed because neither of us could handle that. We can’t handle losing each other either. Our competing desires see saw across our quilted queen bed. Secrets wisp into ears and out the windows into the fresh air where, weightless and powerless, they can finally dissipate. “You’re my best friend,” we say. Skin to skin, all our worries seem more manageable, and sleep visits again.

Chelsea Stickle is the author of the flash fiction chapbooks Everything’s Changing (Thirty West Publishing, 2023) and Breaking Points (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Her stories appear in Passages North, The Citron Review, Peatsmoke Journal, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and others. Her micros have been selected for Best Microfiction 2021 and 2025, the Wigleaf Top 50 in 2022 and the Wigleaf Longlist in 2023. She lives in Annapolis, Maryland with her black rabbit George and a forest of houseplants. Learn more at chelseastickle.com.