Cat’s eye
I’m not a cat;
I can’t see in the dark
yet it’s always dark
when I awake
and draw the line
under another night’s sleep.
My Words, My World
First drafts – A few pages in the large wilderness of the world of writing
Archive for the category “insomnia”
The night, the chemical night
Every now and again my long-term sleep problems find their way onto the written page; it’s how I feel when I pick up the pencil. I can’t tell of flowers when I see monsters.
***
The night;
star-less, aimless.
Fitful twists and turns and sweat on the pillow
tempted by sleep, made
hidden in foil
just within reach,
enticing, seducing.
The night;
I give in,
because I’m damned if I do
and I’m damned if I don’t.
Irrationality becomes normality
as sleep descends:
a benzodiazepine dream
Daydream
The day is for dreaming
What you could be
or want to be
What you could have been
or will be
The night
I avoided its darkest depths
lest from my pharmaceutical dreams
I returned; empty.
Trapped
in their batwing-leather embrace
to wander alone.
The night,
the chemical night.
Ernesto, has the sun risen?
The sun also rises.
Donde esta la fiesta Ernesto?
The sun also rises. It rises on a new day, in a new way, earlier than yesterday and later than tomorrow, when the sun also rises.
The sun also rises in a cloak of washed pink, when the blue finally lets go and after the black has given up the ghost. Eventually it will shine a light on the eastern-facing peaks 5,000 feet above my right shoulder as I sit.
The sun also rises on new hopes and old fears. Hopes are always new, even if they’re the same hopes you had yesterday, last week or even last year. Hopes are renewable, and like solar power, and are renewed with the coming sun.
The sun also rises on the birds that sing in the new day. Each voice different, discernible from the others. If I was a cat I’d be at my wits end figuring ways to go and catch one. A swift bite to the neck and it would sing no more. But I’m no more cat than I am prehistoric Auroch, and the birds fill me with pleasure. I can leave them to their song. What do they sing anyway?
The sun also rises on a short night of discarded dreams. Dreams, and drugs to make you sleep, but don’t. The sun also rises on tiredness, which I fight with everything I have to hand; my 2H pencil and notebook. I write.
Fear the night
Sleep eludes me, deserts me
It skirts my nighttime like a seige
Sleep seized from the grasp of the sleeper
Who should now be in deep slumber
As I fumble for words
(I write)
“Sleep sir, sleep!” I hear
As once again I fear
To go to bed
Lest nightmares awaken me
Awaken me?
And dreams haunt me
Dreams? Ha!
You have to sleep to dream
Sleeps eludes me, deserts me
My night perched on a precipice
A night-borne orifice
Black and deep
Like the narcotic sleep
(I crave)
Shadowplay
Living in a daily world of imaginary conflicts, in which the tide of others washed and pushed against him, He lived ever in anger’s twilight. The anger simmered, threatening to boil over but not quite managing to do so. In some ways it would have been better if it had.
In his make-believe world in which everything was a hurt against him, either directly or indirectly, he no longer lived; not in the true sense of the word. Whereas sensibility to his condition was heightened, other important aspects of his character were made obtuse. Happiness was an emotion felt by others. His anger would obtund any sense of enjoyment or achievement and his spiral continued downwards.
The world outside is bright
Spring fills the air
The fields and the trees are colour
Animals awaken from winter slumber
But within him the winter remained
And for him the clocks unchanged
He slivered on ice
where others walked on grass
He shivered with cold
while others warmed to the sun
He withered, his face white
when others danced with new life
He lingered in the shadows
whilst others cavorted in the long,
joyful hours of sunlight
He revered in his head
his sufferance in a world
where hurts imaginary
and conflicts obtusely
Beat him to the ground
into the dust, to be found
Where maybe hope one day
will bring him out;
out into the world again.
Depression can take manifest itself in various guises, this I know from personal experience. Whilst at the height of my chronic insomnia 4 years ago the hospital put it down to depression which, personally, I couldn’t understand as there was no real motive, so I believed. I just thought it was the other way around – that I was shot to pieces in the head, imagining scenarios which weren’t there simply because I didn’t sleep. Thankfully, with loving support and no lack of determination, I managed to untangle myself from the shadow-spectre of this awful and destructive condition.
During last 4 years I’ve started writing, which is a therapy in itself. I still don’t sleep anywhere near the recommended 8 hours but whoever recommends this probably has nothing to do all day. The above, in a very rough form, has been around quite a while, probably written during ‘recovery’ stage. Ordinarily I avoid personally-related posts, but this is different – I want that reminder there. I want to remind myself of where I was and where I am and be thankful for it.
C.
p.s. – Shadowplay is a track by Joy Division from their “Unknown Pleasures” album. It just seemed apt in this case.
Become
Here am I
Who am I
In the mirror
My eyes
The eyes of someone
I no longer know
The eyes of someone
Who no longer shows
A light
A smile
I revile, myself
And who I’ve become
No longer one
Who was someone
To care
To share
To bare his soul
Insomnia has left a hole
But hope will not desert me.
The war, Baby.
The lines. So many of them it seems, interconnected and weaving a spider’s web of expression (exhaustion) on my face. My face. My Insomnia. My card. I present me and myself to you, my expression (exhaustion) for you to see. Is it not enough to just get through the day without having killed or been killed, to keep your job, to love your wife/partner/mistress/friends? What does the world want from me at this hour – always? Why does it not let me sleep?
We went through the war, Baby. Almost 15 years, you and I. Our war. Troughs deep as trenches, trapping body, poison, blood but offering shelter. A temporary escape? Choose the sniper’s bullet or machine-gun mow-down. The result’s the same. Bleeding, twitching body on the ground. Life-draining.
The war Baby. Those truces. Those long (but not long forgotten) truces. Not a trough or trench in sight. Poppy-field sunrise. Blackbird reveille. No scars, bullet wounds or barbed-wire kisses. Just us: and the world. When did you realise that Baby? Just us.
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Whereabouts
-
-
My Words, My World 