If I lay on my back on my bed in my room, my feet bouncing left and right in the cushy support of my many pillows, my head would just barely tilt off the end of the bed. Lying this way, staring up,
my room assumes a new orientation, and I can watch my ceiling turn into a clean, bare floor.

If I could walk around up there, push my legs up above me, and stick both feet to that new floor, then the room I know, the one that I decorated with my playboy bunny posters, sea-shells, sunset scenes and mirrors, will change. Surely, it’s the very same room that makes it easy to feel like the rest of the world has stopped outside my window, suspended and hanging on, holding-that-thought until I step outside again; that room that I know so well will change, possibly becoming completely unrecognizable to me.

If I could sink down into a crouch I would grip my new floor with both feet and hands. Maybe my hair might be the only thing that continued to follow the old rules,
hanging below me, sucked down by a gravity that I can’t feel. That rule, that strict, physical law, maybe this time instead of pull me down, it would hold me up. Maybe I could lay flat on my back, sprawled out across my ceiling/floor. Maybe my arms and legs could finally stretch out, newly unencumbered by desk, dresser, and double bed. Maybe I could just lay there, face up but staring down at all my furniture.

I could be staring “up” into the candle burning on my desk. It’s the one labeled “cherry blossom” that smells less like fruit and more like clean laundry waiting like responsibility in the dryer to be unloaded. I could be wondering why the wax doesn’t drip down into my eyes, falling up and sticking in my hair to become detergent-scented-hair-gel that sculpts my ‘do into a permanent reach for the carpeted ceiling. Or, if it doesn’t drip, I could just relax and close my eyes. I could breathe in and let the smell of clean, dry shirts and socks float up and warm my face.

If a few pillows fell from their perch above me, I could stick them to the ceiling/floor as well, stuff them under my neck and behind my knees, maybe close my eyes, and I could take a short nap.

Maybe I would dream here, lying on my back.

The Christmas lights that line my ceiling turn the new floor into a catwalk… I could be a model, with my hair reaching up at unnatural angles and points, courtesy of gravity-hairspray and my blinking fire-detector a small, green strobe-light in my own upside-down fashion show. The playboy bunnies would look on as judges, their heads and bow-ties tilted at unnatural angles, twisting, turning, trying to decide if this new fashion suits me, if I can sway and saunter across my ceiling/floor like a real model, or if maybe I should consider NOT quitting my day job.

The couple kissing passionately on the beach, both topless in ripped jeans digging their bare toes into the sand, would continue to do so ignoring my fashionable strut completely, on a poster appropriately titled “passion”—one of my favorite photographs. Except from this angle the woman could spend some well-deserved time on the bottom of their pile, letting her partner do some of the work for once. I imagine her tired muscles would sink into the wet sand, finding it a luxury second only to cotton sheets, limbs weary from holding herself above him for years and years.

From up here, my familiar world turned upside-down above me, or right-side up below me, whichever you prefer, I don’t have to answer your knock at the door.

You can come in, if you want to—it’s unlocked. Turn the door handle and step right in.

But if you come in and look around, you, a happy messenger of chores and fears, uncertainty and to-do lists, I will be here, above you, praying that you don’t look up, that I could just lie here a few minutes longer, stretched out, smiling, serene, in the soft glow of christmas lights. This is where I will be, looking down, watching the wheels of your mind ticking, tocking, and turning below me, turning endlessly even as you leave my room, while I lie here still. A stranger to rules, obligation, lists and laws such as gravity, and especially the walls around me.