There needs to be silence
where a symphony now plays.
I must gather sleep
before dawning of day.
For how can I drive
if I cannot control
my arms and my legs?
I’ll swerve off the road!
Doesn’t my brain know
that sleep’s its antidote?
Doesn’t it see
that without, there’s only hope?
Stop thinking!
Get sleeping!
But how can I sleep
in a race against time?
The hand’s nearing six,
they’ll soon jar the line:
electric disruptions,
neurological grinds;
they’ll deep-fry my neurons
and darken my mind!
An hour’s left,
no more no less.
Please brain, I beg you,
let me have rest!
Morning arrives,
and I’ve slept no deeper.
My last hope I swallow
in fear of a seizure.
This one's a bit personal, and comes from an experience I had recently. If you don't know, I have epilepsy, which is, in short, seizures. Mine are connected to how much sleep I get, so if I don't get enough sleep I'm more likely to have a seizure (although medications really help too). Recently I had almost a full night where I couldn't sleep. I had a neurologist appointment the next day, and would have to drive an hour to get to it. I knew how much I needed to sleep, and even went to bed a little early to make sure I would get enough. But no matter how hard I wanted to, I couldn't fall asleep. I'm usually not too worried about my epilepsy; as long as I'm on my pills, I don't really think about it too much. But that night it really got to me, and I became more and more frantic as the night went on (which most likely attributed to my lack of sleep). It's a horrible feeling, knowing that your life could depend on the amount of sleep you get yet not being able to sleep. I actually wrote parts of this poem while trying to force myself to fall asleep.
In the end, my medications were enough to keep any seizures at bay, and I made it safely to my appointment and back. So thank God for that.
Also, I slept like a log the next night.
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