On the Scarcity of Sleep

How am I doing?

Ask my sleepless nights.

If only the late-night ramblings of my mind could be put to use. My fear of aging. My sense of disgust at having to go through the process of death and birth. Oblivion would be so much easier. But I have no faith in such peace.

I am trapped. In song and soul. Soundless, lest I meet the devil in an Angel.

I behave as if I know the future. I assume my flesh borne feelings will be met with battery acid. The chances are difficult to calculate. I deem it better to not try, and so remain trapped.

Once the tumult reaches a fever pitch, a certain clarity dawns over the pandemonium. I see the truth outlined in the glowing darkness of fatigue. I don’t know what I had. I don’t know what I’ve lost. Nostalgia and regret claw at each other, neither able to dominate my frenzied awareness.

The memory passes and something synthetic takes its place. Not memory or true prognostication. Something adjacent. A dozen potentialities that do not need my attention, yet somehow clamor for it.

In those distant landscapes I have, more often than not, made something of my life. A product, a name, an achievement. Anything that sharpens the inward blade of the present moment, of this world where I value nothing about myself.

Instead of any kind of peace, I travel to a place where I can use my shallow breath as the stone upon which I can whet the self hatred in my mind. You won’t see the blood, but I drown.

I could hug my son again and remember greater works that helped me value his safety, comfort, and bare existence. For a few moments I might remember to dedicate the bliss of knowing such an effulgent star. May you all have this joy in the way that serves you best.

The next breath ignites a churning stomach: how many ways have I failed this child. I do not bother to count them. I simply know they come grouped in major and minor forms. Dominos of guilt tumble across the mind. Their mass increases over time. Some memories are old. They should have faded. Yet I am flattened, shuddering, by an enduring monument of self chastisement.

I wander through the filthy swamp of the past, turning over every stone, searing my soul on their acrid fumes. The rest I had hoped to find, the respite I yearn for, is not for this inner busybody.

I remember the wooden building blocks in my father’s home office. The box showed castles, towers, structures of refinement and complexity. I never managed to produce any such thing. I am able to stack blocks so that they do not fall, but nothing of value is revealed. My creations and I are made of the same material: mediocrity.

The final insult, the lasting injury, is an unavoidable fact hiding behind the hubbub: this will hurt me tomorrow. When I choose to start the new day, for the deep of the night has already dragged past, I will feel my age. My neck will decide that I have not had punishment enough, and with subtle torque pull my brain's comfort apart.

I will survive the pain. I will eat it as I have countless other such days. I will swallow the pain-killers and wonder, as I slide along the thorn gilded road of the day to day, if ever again I will find the blissful peace of sleep.