Notes from A Sleepless Bed

God, why can’t I sleep?

o god, i am dying.

no book to read,

no article to write,

no grand distraction left

to place between myself & ceiling.

o god, i am dying.

no one to love me,

no one to ache me,

no voice arriving through dark

to prove i exist.

o god, i am dying.

ceiling has not moved in four hours.

i have checked.

twice, twenty times, a hundred.

ceiling remains

to being a ceiling.

o god, i am dying.

pillow is on wrong side.

i turn it.

this side is wrong too.

there is no right side anymore.

only variations of disappointment.

only geography of a bed

that has forgotten what rest means.

o god, i am dying.

i am hungry,

but not for food.

tired,

but not for sleep.

full of something

& nowhere to go.

o god, i am dying.

fan roars like a distant aircraft

carrying everyone somewhere

i was not invited.

its rhythm is unbearable.

its silence would be worse.

o god, i am dying.

my left foot is colder than my right.

my right eye is warmer than my left.

universe has become asymmetrical.

i suspect this is personal.

i suspect universe knows what it did.

o god, i am dying.

three hours ago i thought of something funny.

funniest thing i would ever think.

a joke capable of saving civilizations,

capable of revolution,

i have forgotten it.

i’m so sorry.

i’m so sorry for what we’ve lost.

o god, i am dying.

water bottle is empty.

getting up is not an option.

dehydration is.

o god, i am dying.

i rearranged myself beneath blanket.

i am now someone else entirely.

she also can’t sleep.

we have not introduced ourselves yet.

we are both dying.

o god, we are dying.

moon is doing something outside window.

something important.

something luminous & ancient.

i can’t see it from here.

it appears to be functioning perfectly

without my participation.

o god, i am dying.

i have considered getting up.

four hundred times.

i have not gotten up.

my commitment to suffering

is at point.

o god, i am dying.

blanket is too heavy

& also not heavy enough.

physics has failed me.

o god, i am dying.

then,

birds begin.

birds

birds have started.

it is not morning.

it is naut even close to morning.

yet birds, drunk on some private joy

i was not informed of,

have begun announcing existence.

who told them.

what do they know.

why are they celebrating.

why was i not invited

to whatever this is.

o god, i am dying.

night is ending without my permission.

world continuing its ancient machinery

entirely indifferent to my vote.

moon departs,

birds arrive,

sky lightens at edges.

fan keeps spinning.

ceiling keeps existing.

& i remain here,

awake enough to witness all of it,

as if consciousness itself

were a punishment

for something i did

in a life i can naut remember.

o god,

i will sleep now.

i can feel it.

any moment

any second

any….

no.

i will not sleep now.

& so earth turns,

birds sing their unreasonable songs,

stars dissolve into morning

one by one like promises,

& i continue

my ridiculous, luminous extinction

beneath a blanket

that has never once understood me

& never will.

o god,

i am dying.