Tag: sleeping

The second hand ticks,
each click like the repeated trigger of a pistol,
fearful, I lie in wait,
as it speaks of how affected I will be if I remain
in this involuntary state.
 
I’ve barely slept in days,
awakening hours always the same,
middle of the morning,
the arms at those memorable angles,
I wish I could slip daintily into my dreams.
 
Instead, nightmarish awakenings
where I beg for liquid,
I am strangely thirsting,
as though the method of fighting to stay under
the surface of consciousness has drained me of all
moisture;
I am but a slice of aged parchment.
 
And upon me there are unintelligible words written,
scrawled, in fact,
speaking of that which I cannot understand,
let alone behold,
but the effort behind the scratching,
the etching seems atrociously laboured,
is this what I do in my short periods of sleep?
Where I detail myself or,
I detail the unknown controllers?
 
Because that is what it feels like,
I am a being not of my own accord,
when I lie there awaiting sleep,
I ache, anxious butterflies in my chest,
anxiety, anxiety,
there’s something there, unheard.
 
Like a pinprick in the distance, not many would register that sound,
but to understand its existence is of a severe knowing,
a recognition of something there unknown,
an insomniac’s thoughts pinned in the clouds.
 
And I lie here,
waiting, waiting quietly,
my eyes widened and my heart beating in such a state,
how long will it be before the pills take effect?
Before falsified sleep is forced upon me,
a method of a chemical dream, dream, dreaming?

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

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