Insomnia and poetry

Apparently I wrote this way way back in or around 2003. It seems to be a moment of clarity in my otherwise mentally hectic life. 

 

Insomnia and Poetry

Four A.M. and I'm awake. Nobody but me up. The one lone soul in this house, on this block, probly in this whole city. Bridle trails, the new environment. Horses and woods, a little different than what I'm used to but ok. Still I can't sleep and its almost physically hurtful. It is physically hurtful. I'm mad at the situation, frustrated. I pick up my pen and transfer this anxst onto a piece of notebook paper. "Ode to the sleepless night." I feel original. My prose isn't great but it does the trick. My soul is relieved from the pain, at least temporarily. It is pain. A kind of slow burning pain. A frustrating pain. A "why me?" kind of pain. "Oh sleepless night, oh stirring soul." I write and wonder if anyone will ever read this. Still vain. Vanity deep in my soul, even through humbling suffering. I'd been having sleeping issues for months. Worse than ever before. I'd lay down for hours in high school. Sleepless. Turning, twisting, thinking, surmising, concluding, all for nothing. The day is the right time to be awake. To think. But my clock would not turn off. I was 19 and it had just gotten real. It had gotten worse in the last year. Stress? A hurt brain from my party days? Days I'd to forget. Pretend they never happened. But there had to be a reason for this. Doctors visits that didn't help. Ambien, Seroquill, Unisom, Melatonin, Valerian, Calcium and Magnesium, teas, etc. etc. The list grows and I was using it all. Nothing worked. My body wanted to be awake at night and I had no release besides my poetry. And what could I do with that? Who would pay me to be a poet? "Oh sleepless night, why do you torture me." I fancied myself literary, dramatic, a small Shakespeare. But I was entertaining myself. Only the owls were my friends. Where would this end? Would it end? "Oh sleep you are my enemy. Why does the night close in on me?" I had to find a solution! I need a solution! Two melatonins, a valerian, multi vitamin, warm glass of milk, and an Ambien. I'll be in a sleep coma for four days, but at least I'll sleep. Work at 10 A.M. No I can't miss work. I have to stay up. My plight, my cross, my suffering. Still awake. 5 Am, 6 Am. The birds chirping. My face pale. My countenance lowered, sad, tired, upset, unable to go on. Ode to the sleepless night.