asleep

Darkness envelops our world
a daily occurrence,
the necessity of life: sleep.

I, myself
toss and turn:
little by little,

survive.

The amber shadows crossing my bed,
the humdrum drone
of clinical silence,
drifting through my lobes.

Counting the seconds
striving for dawn to rise,
backwards they seem,
mesmerising:

to the left dull, digital figures
mocking my very worth.

Tick-tock, tick-tock,
hypnotic yet disturbing,
as my being perspires
the listless breath needling quiet.

My eyes squeezed tight
framing images passing by,
each thought a moment of yesteryear
what should have been and what has not,
animated shadows playing peek-a-boo,
scaring the reality of waking up.

Startled!
I sat up wiping my mouth,
alive and lucid
yet confused as the orange littered my room,
was it a dream?
I think not:

A passing pause occurring
fooled my being,
the clock displaying five past three,
lost for a moment
indulging de ja vu:

again.

Faces seep through the cracks of the walls
laughing at my deprivation,
toy with the sanity I once had,
and the yearning for peace,
the place of pleasant dreams.

Each night I feel the world's burden,
happy thoughts swallowed by the paranoia,
that this is it:

the final journey of my meaningless existence,
an inconsequential speck of dust
falling through time,

asleep?

enough is enough.

© 2007 Michaela James.