
I suffer so from poor sleep—
Interrupted sleep, to be precise.
(I can barely keep my eyes open after nine pm)
And once again, last night,
awoken by noise and movement,
I found myself staring at the digital display
on the clock radio:
1:30
(I was unlucky, it’s usually more like
3:10 or 3:30 or even 4:00)
When this happens, I know
I’ll toss and turn for a long,
time-devouring stretch,
awash in thoughts of everything
unresolved in my life, feeling flushed,
ants of anxiety under my skin.
Sometimes, if four is antemeridian, and
I find myself awake, I forfeit the sleep
in exchange for time alone which
is nothing like lonely or uneasy,
but feels rather more like time stolen,
appropriated from the Universe and
made mine.
There’s a cost to this brazen shoplifting
of minutes and hours—a penalty.
Research shows that the hours unslept
are snatched from the end of our lives.
(I learned this only this week)
This seems unjust, and yet
While I covet the dream of deep and vital sleep,
I’m caught red-handed with the irony
that I did in fact fall back into sleep sometime
after 1:30 this morning, held on tight till
7:02 and have felt cheated
and pressed for time
ever since.

One thought on “THE DREAM OF DEEP AND VITAL SLEEP”