Sleep

Sleep

I fight sleep, and
sleep fights me.

My eye lids at war with
foundations of physics.
And they are losing the battle.

But gravity is no match
for my will to see a sunrise.
Hear a bird sing at dawn.
So I wait on.

But truth be told I
wait not for visions of
grandeur or sounds
of chirped melody.

My bed feels stiff like wood,
and head rests on cinder blocks.
Sheets feel like sand paper
against my skin.

The clock ticks tocks
my conscience into
a frenzied state.

What a web of thoughts
manifest and weave at 4am.
Mistakes haunt, and
decisions taunt.

What I wouldn't give
for a REM of a sweet
dream.

A single moment of peace
Away from the suffocating
imagery of decayed dwelling.

How dare these thoughts
invade my most intimate
place.

Here is MY domain, and MY
escape from the troubles
of the world.
Yet I lay mistaken.

Not even under the armor
of a blanket can I shield
my restless thoughts from
my journeyed past.

An expedition through
treacherous forests, dripping
arrows from gossip's soldiers up above.

Duck and cover turmoils bullets.
Tuck and roll past obstacles
I built on my own. Lay in the
brush while opportunity sneaks
by.

Over-stepped boundaries burn
foot bottoms, like lava rocks.
Coiled and sinking deeper
in the depressed quick sand of
my own failed ambitions.

Here I lay guarded at my post
And this is the actuality that
keeps me awake.
So I fight sleep
while reality fights me.

But eventually, when lid muscles
subside, and yawns increase. I will
drift off,
and let the real dream begin.

-Poetess