May 23, 2005

Numb as a Statue

't'ain't nothin' special
when the present meets the past.
I'm always takin' care of business,
I've paid my first and last.

I'd dearly like to uproot this insomnia. This latest round has been nice enough to leave me, inconsecutively, ten hours of sleep in the last seventy-two. That is, about five hours total on Friday and Saturday nights, and last night, none. I've been known to say I had "no sleep last night," meaning a minimal amount. This time, though, my brain did not for one minute flip to an asleep state. I gave up at 6 a.m. It was already bright out. Somehow the fact that the world was beautiful regardless was a consolation.

I've just come dripping from the shower. I feel like I might pass out, gratifyingly, from exhaustion. I do not believe this will come to pass. I'm still too busy thinking.

It's an endless rivulet singing through my head that keeps me awake while I contemplate the backs of my eyelids and the conscious acts of breathing. I'm reeling through an enormity of things I'd wish to fix about myself. The inability to shut up and go to sleep, for one. Quietnesses, loudnesses, things too vague to explain or too specific to mention. Things I didn't do or shouldn't have. It's not unlike me - in fact it's happened much more than once - to walk too far after turning down a ride, to make things difficult, walking away from what was waiting for me, for no reason other than to wander longer and worse. I would - have often, come to think about it - more probably press into blank forest than follow a path laid before me in untrodden leaves wanting wear, as the man said. I must want wear too.

To put it shortly (as if I haven't blown that chance already,) the kinds of things everyone stays awake thinking, sometimes.

Actually I want either to drop where I stand or wake up. Or really, both.

I want to count back down from my enormous number to zero and lose those superfluous things, find the truth of the basic state, close my eyes, exhale indefinitely and glide un-knowing through scattering secrets.

Does any of this mean a goddamn thing?

I don't care if it's superficial,
You don't have to dig down deep.
Just bring enough for the ritual.
Get here before I fall asleep.

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