Why Can't I Sleep

   Hello. I wrote this a little while ago and those I shared it with then seemed to enjoy it. I've just reread myself and am inclined to agree with them so I thought I'd share it with you.

Why Can't I Sleep?

Is it: the hastily scrawled essays hanging Damoclean above my pillow, waiting to be marked and, free from light, stringy restraint, to plunge?

Is it: disappointment at unwon kudos cavorting in orcish glee, jabbing with gouging pikes of self-doubt and unreal, fever-dreamed success?

Do mind and soul rush down untrod roads, hoping to catch a glimpse of some unknowable, unseen monument to my greatness?

No. ...

So why can’t I sodding well SLEEP?

Why do thoughts spin and make me nauseous?

Why do visions of beauty and joy frolic, teasing, out of focus, of reach, of sound?

Why do my eyes swim with sights of one met but barely met, known but unfamiliar?

All so similar to angsty dross, so in need of exorcising, of recognising it for what shit it is.

Fiction.

Fantasy.

Guff.

You don’t love her – because you don’t know her! That’s why! You’ve hardly met!

And yet...

And yet it IS an intriguing thought – one which one ought to dismiss as idle fancy.

But if you act she MIGHT accept or at least not laugh full derisive in your face.

Mark this place and seek HER face to ask, to test, to see –

Ah...

What that face does to me – it’s a buzz, you see; a joy for me

One quick smile and this boy is floored by she who hoards my dreams and keeps them.

Let her keep them.

Or perhaps we could share them, be a pair, then, and all content lie back and stare ten hours at stars and lights and at each others’ eyes and talk of all the things we ought to have done but didn’t.

We didn’t because I wouldn’t, not if I had the time with you: I couldn’t - I’d be ensnared and scared to tread on this joyous bubble and be befuddled when this flimsy hope takes my weight and takes on shape and becomes reality. That would be really quite Okay for me.

But for now

I dream.

But still don’t sleep.

   One hopes you're well,
      Yrs,
         ADWoodward