I put head on pillow,
and immediately know
it’s not welcome
the sheet sighs beneath me
and the duvet reluctantly covers my skin,
snarling, it viciously bites my chin
I hold it down, tightly under my face,
and pray for sleep to quicken its pace
Tonight turning off the light will provide no darkness,
only a pathetic grey,
threatening the villainous
coming of day
I hear a clock tick;
one that doesn’t exist
and the persistent flick
of the numbers on my phone,
climbing time.
Eyelids closed, but twitch to be opened
What if i do open them, just a crack?
Will I be awake then?
In the corner of my mind, I find
a super glue tube,
I line my sockets with its sticky white paste,
and close them,
My eyeballs vibrate and shake
desperate to get out,
What next?
I find a field of sheep;
they gallivant and bleat aggressively
Shepherded by lunacy
they start to commit suicide,
one jumps off a cliff,
and another strides behind,
another is mangled in barbed wire
while one rolls in petrol and sets on fire.
I am traumatised,
I nurse one and try to close its wounds,
but fail,
crimson leaks on white fluff,
and I’m panting in a pinafore,
I can’t take it anymore.
I force open glued eyelids,
to stare at the ceiling,
My mind peeling like a tangerine
Through everything I’ve ever done, ever seen
ever felt.
I can feel
the cold hard wood of the bench that seated my first break up,
the damp pillow of adolescence,
I smell my mum’s old scent,
but then comes the question I can’t circumvent,
a clearing of the throat, and a guttural voice comes in
excuse me, excuse me, excuse me
if this carries on, what will tomorrow be?
WHAT WILL TOMORROW BE?
I imagine my body corpse-like, with eyeballs swinging on a cartoony spring,
My fictitious, exhausted self is deranged and for some reason, scarily thin,
AND nannying all the world’s children
AND guarding the nuclear button
with a sleepy head slowly dropping towards it,
looking for a little rest…
Yes – I beg for sleep, not just for me, but the good of ALL humanity.
Panic, like the sun, is on the rise
so I summarise my life,
myself,
then my future appears;
a four headed monster with vampiric teeth,
twists his neck and drools blood,
and that’s ENOUGH
eyes open, I look at my phone,
It’s 6.08,
It’s now, today,
no longer yesterday’s late,
and with nothing left to berate,
I wake up to the morning I’ve hated for 9 hours straight,
and find,
it’s actually sort of okay.
