Sleepless Night

Photo credit: www.greenewave.com

Well, this doesn't happen often. It's 3:30 AM and I'm sitting here wide awake with my head and throat on fire. Sleep completely alludes me.

It's these damn allergies, I suppose. I mowed the lawn today and the pollen count must have been at record highs. This kind of thing usually does not bother me. But I guess that this is just one of the many 'perks' of getting older. Every year, I discover new allergies and ailments I never knew I had.

Maybe it's because I'm getting old, and my body is saying, "Keep moving, you don't have time for sleep." I don't know. I feel an ever-increasing fear as each year passes that I'm running out of time. I fear I will die before I can complete all my story ideas. Some of these stories pull on my heart and mind as if to cry out, in that strength one finds when their life depends on it, and dominate my mind. Others visit me in my dreams, bringing me through a long slow seduction as I see the characters move about, morph and change with the developing theme. Or maybe it's just a writer thing.

It seems writers suffer from insomnia more than other folks, and that remains a mystery to me. I can only imagine it has something to do with having a story in your head that simply must be written. I think this way too, and more often now.

Well, with nothing else to do but sit and look at my computer screen, I wrote a quick poem to express my thoughts of this sleepless night. here it is:

Sleepless Night

Oh, those torrents of the dark
Those devilish, nocturnal things

Tonight, I joined them
Cast away the invitation to sleep
I cannot find rest
And my dreams have left in fear
Of the wilds in the night

I watch with untrusting eyes
As a cast of spirits taunt me
And hold my friend captive, just out of reach

Spirits so dark and deceitful
Even their shadows are not welcome
They are only darkness among shadows
And they hold slumber ransom

What ransom for sleep
Name it and I’ll pay
Although sleep will not be freed

I’ll pay my dues all the next day 

Yep, I'm sitting here hoping that I might at least get sleepy. While most men in my position would eventually resort to surfing porn, I'll probably succumb to the lure of searching for the next typewriter in my collection. 

Somehow I believe porn would be cheaper.

Comments

  1. Oh, I like the poem. Scary thoughts in the middle of the night, though. I do wake up a lot sometimes to think about my story. But for some reason that usually puts me right back to sleep. :P

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    1. Thank you for your comment. Funny things, these blogs. It am perpetually amazed at how my varied and eclectic posts are received in the form of comments. Sometimes I'm flooded with comments, other times, the post dies the slow death of obscurity. I normally do my best pre-writing while sleeping. But, if I don't get my thoughts down first thing, they become lost to the day. Writers-we're some strange folks.

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  2. I think we writers suffer insomnia because we have our brain working so hard during our off hours. So many things keep a writer from actually writing the stories that plague our subconscious. Not everyone can whip out that pen and pad and write a novel in the few seconds between waking and the dissipation of the dream challenge, so we stay awake and hope to catch the muse off guard.

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    1. I agree. If I could actually write just a fraction of what goes through my head, I'd have novels coming out the yahoo... but I'd probably also be in jail.

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