Insomnia Poem

It isn’t fair that when
I close my eyes the place where
sleepy fields of jumping sheep should be
instead I see a long dark road that leads to
the place I imagine your door
you are sleeping peacefully behind
and I am bolted to the floor staring at the space
that I know was mine
and I feel like I am out of time and somehow, lacking
the simplest of chemicals and hormones
enzymes and all those squishy inner things
that make me smell like breeding to some other being
and maybe that is why I still love you
or why the sheep are off to play
and I lay here day after day and wonder if I were born
with my x and y in line, would you be mine?

-

Missionary is the space between your arms and my shoulders.

It was so darned hot today.  From almost the first breath of dawn to these last quiet moments I played the spare today.  Number three.  My usual post. It is something that I still cannot seem to get used to.  Sometimes I want to break free- scream, shake myself, wake up from this world and find something better for myself, but I would so miss the people, I just cannot convince myself to go.

Have you ever imagined it?  Cooly, quietly, slipping unseen into the night, never to return.  Just a shadow or a memory.  Do you ever wonder who would think of you when you left?  Cross someone’s mind once a day?  Once a week?  Once a month?  Who would even care?  The people you think- or a complete surprise cast?  Perhaps no one.  And then, if it is no one, is that something you want to risk knowing?  I don’t know.

Dwelling on these dramatic thoughts can get a person so glum- perhaps I should stop writing at two in the morning.  Instead of the heavy cortex work, let me offer:

Here are five things that made me happy today-

1) Watching almost a whole pound of turkey bacon cook at once on the griddle lovingly purchased for me by Jacob.
2) My free trip to the Franklin Park Zoo, getting to put in my vote for the new baby giraffee name.
3) The way flank steak tastes if you marinade it just right and drink a lime rikey with your meal.
4) Eating peanut butter oreo ice cream with people who truly appreciate its deliciousness.
5) Getting surprise text messages with messages that inspire hope.

Is it a problem that three of these things focus on food?  I think so, but I am not sure how to fix that.  Maybe I just had a little too much to smoke tonight and I have the munchies?  I don’t know, but I could sure go for a cheese pizza right now.

I picked “Twinkie” as a name.  I think its brilliant.  Giraffes totally remind me of twinkies!

When one thing makes you think of another.

Gentle.  Gentle, I tell myself in these wee hours of morning when I stand very precariously balanced between the sweet respite of slumber and the aching chasm of insomnia.  My little dog is peacefully sleeping beside my bed, stretched out trustingly- my orange cat is beside me, fast asleep on his back, the white fluff of his belly fur wafts gently in the wake of good old Lasko, my industrial window fan.  They almost mock me, these sweet creatures.

So I try to be gentle.  I try not to push my mind in any one direction.  I try to break out of the myriad of expectations that keep me walled here on this bed, lonesome, with slumber just out of reach.  I just cannot seem to free myself of it tonight.  I want to be a tattle tale.  I want to tell on myself- just get out the phone and run down my address book, calling everyone and confessing all that I have kept from them.  Once, just once, I want to be the one who ilicits the jealousy and not the one who feels it.  I don’t care how selfish that sounds, it’s true.  I want something enviable.  Or maybe I don’t.  Perhaps what I truly want, is sleep.

I’m feeling it rather hard today- jealousy knawing at me, fear knawing at me, the echo of handprints and bloody lips knawing at me- even after such a wonderful night- perhaps even moreso because I had a wonderful night- they creep in, try to take hold, and try to shake from my grasp any semblence of serenity.

Lavan is barking in her dreams, I’ve never heard her do that before.  Possibly it is God’s way of telling me to stop the panicking, stop the foolish self examination, and join her in sleep.  I think I shall try to take his advice, for my part.

I hope I can give you more, when next I give.

“I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8)

…that He might be my shepard.

"you change like sugar cane" says my northern lad…

I slept alone a lot this week.

There are many nights when I go to bed with so many things and people beside me, upon me, inside me- filling me up and scouring me clean or rubbing their dirt into me- but this week, in silence, most every night, my mind was just an echoing sound, quiet and white like a fan, and it was good.

I slept well and deeply, I cried only as I wished to and not for long- only to release what came to my pillow with me- anger and frustration- trying to rectify wonder and awe with pain and saddness.  I was able to cast them all out of bed with me.  Perhaps it is the newness and cleanness in the air.  Perhaps because I have too many social occassions to fill my calendar and don’t need to rely on who is home to keep me company.  Perhaps I am just tired of aching for things I don’t have control over and being angry with myself over perfectly rational feelings.

Sometimes I feel like I lost my best friend.  Then I remember.  I did. I have. and history repeats itself over and over again.  That used to knaw on me, keep me up at night- tack itself right on to any other emotion and make it ten times worse but now- now- I barely feel it.  I’m worth more.  I am the best friend a best friend could ever need and if those best friends out there cannot hack it they can move on- because I am not changing the way I love a friend to suit their substandard desires.  I won’t do it.  I’m going to love you anyway.

And I sleep better now.

And sometimes I forget to miss you.

And sometimes I remember not to miss you.

Ever Virgin.

Vague City: population- one.

Back again tonight as insomnia threatens me with a crushing blow.  I can’t seem to relax at night here yet and then I spend my day completely exhausted.  I feel like I know how this happened, I know the exact moment when the switch hit my brain and said, “there’s a problem here.” I can feel everything about it down to the curve of my spine.  I replay it over and over again as I lie here awake, a breath away from hyperventaling, thinking about when I was little and I used to lie terrified in my bed, willing myself back to sleep after a nightmare, wanting so badly to get up and flee to my parent’s room but knowing I could not make it a habit.  So I would try to be diplomatic with myself.  How terrified was I?  Was I sweating?  Nauseous?  Or was I just afraid.  Was the dream about a make believe thing like getting chased by a dragon or a real thing like getting hit by a car?  How plausible would my reasoning be behind getting up and going to my Mom?  I would weigh the options, and sometimes terror would get the better of me, and off I would go- but more than those nights that I did go, I remember how angry I used to feel that I had to barter with myself over fear.  I hated that I couldn’t just sleep like everyone else- that my nights were endlessly plagued by being chased or kidnapped, bloodied or separated by fire or water or earthquake from my parents.  I was angry that the logical thinking me knew there was no reality behind the dreams, but the feeling breathing me was scared and shaking.  I can’t help but think of those times now when I lie awake, fears a little more realistic and that much closer to coming true- and I test myself- how much panic before I get up?  Where can I go if I am too panicked to stay in bed?  Bathroom?  Front porch? Jacob’s room?  What are the levels of hysteria that match each location?  And all of it has such an easy fix that I am powerless to make happen. I was so spoiled.  Spoiled enough to remember what its like to feel completely secure for long enough to forget what it feels like not to be.

I’m going to listen to “Vincent” and then try again for rest.

Ever Virgin.

Lying there, I never knew the answer was in the sound that was left between your breaths. ~SR

I look at you lying there

sleeping so soundly

sometimes I wish I could sleep as calm as you

and I bet in your dreaming I’m there

I look peaceful and maybe you’d assume

I’m lost in dreaming too

but despite how I try to close my eyes and join you

despite how I try to hold my breath and body still

despite how I try not to jolt you or wake you

I can’t sleep I don’t breath  I won’t move

Am I fufilled

I look at you lying there and I love you

I want to sleep for decades by side

but with you I’m restless I’m running on empty

I’m living a life  where I have comprimised

You’d think in my sleep I’d see you in my future

You’d think in my dreams I’d see our kids play on the lawn

you’d think in my nightmares I’m living life without you

You would think you would guess but I can’t sleep

So you’d be wrong

You have brown eyes and I love brown eyes

I love how you’re almost six feet tall

I love how we question if god’s really there

and how we hate christmas time at the mall

and on paper we’re great  and our stars are alligned

and it looks like it was all meant to be

but night after night I keep shutting my eyes

and I try but I find I cant sleep

I look at you lying sleeping without me

I bet you’d never guess my restlessness just grows

and while I want to shut my eyes and know the things you know

I can’t sleep I can’t breath I can’t move

How I wish I could wake you I wish I could jolt you I wish I could love you

but wishing that I’d loved you isn’t really loving

I suppose.

Ever Virgin

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty~ Socrates

I’m happy that Jacob is home.  He brought me back the prettiest opal pendant from Hawaii- I absolutely love it!  We’re thinking we might take our vacation to Hawaii instead of London this March- we’re real jet-setters.  He loved his birthday present and tomorrow we’re getting baby kitty from next door- so soon we’ll have three special friends milling around! Lavan was so excited to see Jacob and she’s very content that everyone that belongs in her family is back home.  She is currently passed out in bed beside me.

I’m exhausted already and it’s only Monday. This extra weekend of bare is killing me!  I am glad it’s happening though- I am really proud of all the hard work everyone has put in.  My favorite reviews are from broadwayworld.com, even though we got great reviews in a ton of publications.  We’re talking like a dozen reviews!  Also, the DASH awards were announced and F.U.D.G.E. picked up 6 nominations!   Kacee, Trevor, and SouixSanna got performance nominations, the vocal ensemble of I Love You Because got nominated, Props for Batboy got nominated and Joey got best director nomination for I Love You Because.  I’m very proud.  It has been a season filled to the brim with hard work.

I am looking forward to moving and settling in our new place for a few good reasons, but mostly because I am buying myself a new bed and bedroom set, a real one, for grown ups.  We’re going to have a baby grand piano so my prodigy can work on his music, and a real work table so I can scrapbook again.  I know I have to work slowly to find the things I desire, but sometimes I just want it all to happen right away POOF!!

I can’t seem to get enough sleep lately- perhaps because I was up almost every night Jacob was away- but its been going on for longer than that- my body is looking to recharge itself from fear and stress, and I just cannot seem to put it in a place long enough to keep it secure!

Is there anything better than to be longing for something, when you know it is within reach?~ Greta Garbo

It’s almost 2 am and I am alone in my apartment.  I can’t sleep.  I did a full day’s worth of activities, including a web steering meeting, a communications team meeting, a screening of the batman movie (amazing! disturbing!) with Serge and some general cleaning and organizing of the house space.  There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to sleep, and yet, there it is, sitting in the small of my back as I lay here on my stomach, typing, the weight that is cool and clammy and oppressive, daring me to move, daring me to make a sound, daring my thoughts to stray to a place where the colors and sounds are much more simple and  much more connected to memories.

You know, without him here, the house just feels wrong.  Even with an echo of a dinner party, even with company in my bed, there is still something missing- the smell of his wet soap in the shower or the dim glow of his computer screen from his bedroom.  It makes me wonder when it happened that a solitary world became a joint world.  I like him better than practically any other person I’ve ever lived with unless you count school roomates which personally, I would not.  He’s a very good companion. Safe, reliable, steadfast.

Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep- but it might also be the feeling of overwhelming dread that I cannot seem to shake- I cannot seem to find, in my head, the way to work everything out so that I can make it through the rest of this run of BARE, pack the house, move, live in a compromised space until our new place is renovated,  start a new semester, teach a class, plan a season of fudge…theres even more things- a few weddings, Lavan getting spayed, and officially changing all of my documents to MA ones, to  name some… it isn’t that any one of these items is overwhelming, or even all of them as a unit- it is that I am missing something that I cannot quite name.

It’s a feeling.  Like the glimmer of joy I got when Anise facebook messaged me from Spain, a jolt of electricity that comes when you know that someone you delight in is thinking of you- that notion that for the briefest of moments you are more than just one person, but a combination of feelings and emotions and slimier stuff like blood and marrow from two different people.  I don’t know how it is that he can still make me feel that way, and why Serge, for all his loveliness, doesn’t make me feel that way- which makes me think like it is pointless to go on dates with him, even though he’s a very nice man.  I don’t know what I want except to feel that glimmer of joy more often than I do now- I guess I never put the words together before, but I’m looking for my east coast, appropriate, all weather Anise.  I don’t know where he is, but if I could find him, I’d feel a lot better about the months ahead.

Do you keep dating a nice person you don’t ultimately think will be the right person?  I mean, generally I think the answer is no, but in some cases isn’t it healthy to just -be- dating, even if they don’t fit the pristine model?  I mean how many Anise’s are there out there?  At least my model boy’s merits are almost purely intellectual (though the hair was nice- and the tallness) and spiritual.  Sigh.  This isn’t helping me to get to sleep;  Maybe a shower will help- or a glass of green tea.

pointless rambling of an insomniac.

Ever Virgin.