Our world is designed to keep us awake when we need to sleep.
Constant stimuli is fed through videos on our smartphones. Our eyelids refuse to stay shut while we seek fresh dopamine hits like hopeless addicts. Stress accumulates from non-stop jobs and unpaid bills like snow and ice from a winter storm. Blissful slumber is replaced with coffee-fueled exhaustion and anxiety.
I spent my childhood living outside a rural town far from city lights. Moonlight and starlight were the only lights. Now, as a middle-aged adult, city lights have turned into a constant unwanted companion. Sleep is not the companion it should be.
I am not alone in this experience. When relaxing music, meditation, or sleeping pills are not enough to put you out like a light, how will you drift off and sleep like a log?
My newest poem meditates on the horrors of sleepless nights.
Counting sheep are sheared. Sandman was swallowed by a dune. One Z after another eludes capture. Slumber is an ungranted boon. Mind racing on an invisible track. No checkered flag nor finish line. Green light for uninterrupted rest. Yielded to a four-way stop sign. Nerves crawling around like ants. Thoughts swarm the brain like flies. Head to toe drenched in sweat. Nightmares thrive beyond closed eyes. Tossing and turning is bad. Limbs rigid and unmoving are worse. Shadows at the door and by the bed. Messangers delivering a curse. Eyes playing tricks for laughs. Conjuring only breathless screams. When sleep runs away and hides. Terrors never stay bound to dreams.
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Admit it, John, you've bugged my house!
"Counting sheep are sheared." Hehe. I like that line. Great poem for a very real problem these days.