Notes on Sleeping

1:00AM – *If I mess this up, tomorrow night will be worse…*


I know that    I need to     fall asleep    but   my body thinks      it’s 1:00PM     After all,    how could my    body know otherwise    It’s not like it’s       NIGHT TIME OUTSIDE   and it’s not like I’m   IN A PITCH-BLACK ROOM.            I wish       my brain could    tell my body that   the day is over     and     I wish that my                 body clock          would just        sync up         with my                                             alarm clock.

1:30AM – *Can’t stop thinking…*


randomly accessing flashes of sentimental memory grasping desperately for a thought to latch on to trying to place the history of my life into a grand perspective in an attempt to explain why this insignificant dead instant when everyone near me is unconscious seems like the most significant lively moment, the culmination, intersection, combination of all contemplation, inspiration, and consciousness.

2:00AM – *But I don’t feel drowsy*


Why do we close our eyes
even when it is already dark?
As I close them now it feels as though
the spheres these lids are meant to cover
are screaming
to leave them uncovered.

My oculus is left in a paradox,
a superposition,
where neither open or shut satisfies.

Tears from the dried out surfaces
refuse to fall
and stick to my retina
engorging all that
I cannot see
in a salty pool
of frustration.

2:30AM – *Can’t give up. Stop looking at the clocks…*


Flipping fabrics
Folding fabrics
Fighting fabrics

Feeling friction
Flustered fervor
Feigning fatigue

Fleshy
Fragile
Fester

3:00AM – *I give up…*


And as the thoughts dissolve
As the brainwaves melt into dreams
As the body blurs into blankets
As the eyelids numb
As the breaths fall into line
As the nerves shut themselves off
As I escape this waking world
One final notion slips from the conscious mind
Like a train’s last call

let go

Unlock the door,
Open the hatch,
Undo the binds,
Release your grip;

Let the ground crumble beneath you,
Relinquish control,
Fall from the sky,

and shatter the earth.