In a castle dark
In bed. Windows open. Listening to a cold, early-summer rain. It’s soft. Steady. There aren’t enough of these nights. Not here anyway. Never enough rain. Never enough water.
(water makes me feel better. I always forget that, until I remember.)
the rain is nice. But I am tired. In the metaphorical “we are all tired, so tired” way. But also TIRED. Like, actual sleepytime eyes wide open tired.
put your hand on my skin, feel how tired I am. the nerves underneath your fingers vibrating with wired exhaustion. The tiredness leaking out my pores and staining the air.
“I can’t sleep.” The insomniac’s life story.
But see, I can sleep. I sleep two or three or five hours. Sometimes I even sleep for seven or eight. But it’s so disjointed. No normal cycling through the stages. It’s all zig-zaggy. never really asleep, never really awake. I get enough sleep to be alive. But I’m just an echo, an echo of someone real.
I want sleep. But more than sleep, I want rest. So if an insomniac is someone who can’t sleep, what is someone who can’t rest?
a ghost.
a living breathing ghost that you can see.