my eyes droop
heavy-lidded
with sleep not-yet forgotten
dreams hold me in their vice-grips
and i can’t escape
even what i can’t remember
i once asked someone what some part of my personality
meant in terms of the rest of me
and they stated, very plainly, that i don’t live in reality
(at least not when i can help it)
and i completely
agree
when my body lacks
one essential need
it tries so hard to compensate with others
the problem there comes in
when it affects my ability
to try to attain back that initial lack
so perhaps,
body,
you could let me actually sleep
those few more hours that i need,
instead of waking me up with hunger pangs
to try to feed my tired exhaustion
with digestible sustenance
just a thought.
i am in a mood where
sitting still by a blank document
one arm on the table/laptop/keyboard
one in my lap
no movement
just thought
is far more comforting
(and possibly productive)
than churning out poem after poem
~~~
and yet i will write
because that is what i do
and that seems to be my calling
(at least as of late)
and sometimes one needs to have a moment of stillness
before capturing that stillness in art
(if we just try to capture it without fully feeling it
that art is meaningless
wouldn’t you agree?)
~~~
the droopy eyelids
hover over my eyes
laden with sleep
and a few days of tech week
and i am contemplating writing
contemplating huddling back under the sheets
contemplating at least a few moments of peace
before the craziness of today begins
last night
i had
the worst insomnia
i’ve had
in years.
i mean,
i still have a fair bit of insomnia
that’s something that i think will never
fully
leave,
but i used to be so terrible
at relaxing enough
to fall asleep.
and then, after hours and hours
of trying and failing and trying and trying
and finally, finally dozing off,
i’d still wake up
multiple times in the night
often as awake as when i first laid down
just to start the cycle
all over again.
my insomnia these days
is pretty well relegated
to the waking up during the night—
to pee,
to toss,
to turn,
to overthink,
and then to fall asleep again–
sometimes just once,
sometimes countless times,
but the initial putting myself to bed
no longer that much of an issue
but last night…
oh
last
night
i was awake to the point where i convinced myself it was mania
i was so awake i could not even stay laying horizontal in a bed
i was awake enough to want to run around the house to exhaust myself
to read an entire novel
to start up the late night conversations
with other insomniacs
[not] in my area
i was awake and up and i panicked a little
because, though it’s been nearly a decade,
i’m so familiar with that level
of awakeness
before
bed
but
these days i have a spouse
these days i have settled hormones
these days i have a knowledge and sense of self i never had all those years ago
but really
these days
i have a spouse
who loves me
and who i can rely on
who would stay up with me all night if i needed them to
but who comforts me to the point
of relaxing enough
to fall asleep
(and only wake up once in the night)
there are some mornings
you wake up
and are ready for the day;
you start going through the list
of things to do
and you
get excited about he prospect
of accomplishing those tasks
and some mornings you wake up
and you can’t think about anything other than
when your next nap will be,
because you left your true self
somewhere in a dream
and you ned to get back there
in order to bring it with you
into the conscious waking land
(and without that self
you’re pretty much just falling asleep
wherever you stand/sit/stay anyway)
guess which this morning
is
how come
the rain
sometimes
lulls me into a deep, deep sleep
and sometimes
keeps me up for hours on end?
i would just like a little consistency
it is
very
hard to concentrate this morning
and i don’t know if it’s from
the stress of last night
or
the vividness of the dreams
or
the sadness of this morning
or
the lack of coffee in my bloodstream
or what
but
it is
very
extremely
extraordinarily
bizarrely
quite
hard to concentrate this morning.
~~~
i feel like i’m getting a better handle
on what makes my poetry
my poetry
(but i really have
absolutely
no idea
still
about what makes any poetry
‘good poetry’)
~~~
i would like to write
another
slam poem;
start a flow
and just go,
balance out the rhythm and rhyme
with internal structure,
alliteration,
and find
the transitions,
the cues,
from one section
to anther,
playing with words
and meaning
and framing
the repeating
as metaphor
as a tool
as a lock to turn the key
and find out something new
about me,
about life,
about our home planet earth,
and our collective strife
to stay alive
when all we want
is eternal sleep
(not necessarily because
death is the answer we’re looking for,
but because all these
isms
and power structures
and so-ingrained made up concepts
keep us so wide awake
that sleep seems a necessity
we never get to get
[when was the last time you had
an actual
honest to goodness
no stress
very good
night’s sleep?]
so i guess
that’s what this poem’s about:
the collective trauma
that is
white supremacy/capitalism/america
and how the one thing
that could give us
the fight
we need
to dismantle it
is the the thing
it keeps us
from doing
every
single
night.
(and are my daytime naps
my making up
for this lack,
or is that just a symptom
of the depression
my awareness
of these systems
gives me?)
((or is that a subject
for another poem
for another day?))
so much poetry
about tired/sleepiness
about writing poetry
about grief and grieving
but where’s the poetry for me?
where’s the poetry where i actually wake up?
where’s the poetry where i analyze and create new forms/
new words/
new kinds of poetry?
where’s the poetry where i feel
(at least a little)
more healed after writing it?
where’s the poetry where i have a sense of accomplishment
post-writing
rather than a sense of
‘well, i guess that’s ok enough to stick on the poetry blog’?
where’s my big/epic poem?
what a sleepy day
what a tired night
what a burnt out week/month/year
what an exhausted life.
the last
few weeks
we’ve gotten so little sleep
at night,
what with parties happening
two doors down,
or our dog
trying to lick away her own skin,
or the cat
being…a cat;
sleep has been
interrupted
at best
and non-existent
at worst
but last night
we may have slept through the night?
(or at least, had 3 or less wake-ups,
instead of our usual
10+)
and i feel
p rested
and my body
(and brain)
have no idea
how
to feel
[emotionally]
about that.
~~~
i wonder if i’ll ever feel
like
my poetry has a direction
a perspective
a purpose
a reason to keep writing and writing
other than my own
obsession
with
what the hell this life/world/brain is
but for now
i’ll just keep
writing
and writing
and writing and writing and writing
my damn-near gibberish-ness
and hope it sparks
*something*
in someone
in time.
~~
question
everything
answer
nothing
preserve
some things
and continue
on
kipventures 