Sleepless

Tick, tick, tick. Time moves slow across my face. Another night of reminiscing that I’d prefer to dream away.

It’s been months since my lifelong insomnia has bedded down with me. The introduction of an essential oil diffuser tremendously improved my sleep quality ever since I made the investment. But now the old familiar wakefulness is straining my nerves, electrifying my consciousness; wildly, jubilantly spinning the reel of incessant thought. Perhaps the honeymoon is over?

As I stubbornly lock my eyelids my mind drifts back to many sleepless nights gone by. Was it truly all of ten months ago that the moon found my pillowcase drenched with heartache?

My mind circumnavigates the globe—faces rising and fading—some known and some imagined. I spend these fleeting moments in prayer, remembering the poetry of my last insomnolent grief. I’m at peace now in spite of my wakefulness. I simply remember.

Sleepless

In the grip of the early hours laid
They pass like a dream in the waking

Over one or a million with ache like mine
Where they lie matters little at all

Only grant them their prayer
From my lips to your ears
For I feel them behind my own lashes

With fingers pressed to their sleepless eyes
Whose only companions are tears