and suddenly, the night awoke, and brought me with it.

every day, more and more
waking up feels like leaving home and leaving home feels like losing sleep
and every night, less and less
meeting sleep feels like losing time
and more and more, i wonder while wanting to sleep it off
what i'm sleeping on, or in

my eyes shift up
the gravity of the full moon
on my stares
the only constant friends are
the overambitious sun
and the apathetic moon
with waves and spots and licks

my stomach tosses and turns with me in my sleep
but i'm just pretending sleep
sitting up every ten minutes
to count the curved lines on my pillow, with their curved shadows
and brushing them off with a wave
and listening to a car alarm that turns into a scream
and a bird that matches it
or thinking about the vegetable soup that made me cry last night
and about how cats like laps and wishing i could jump on my dreams like that

my headache beats a waltz and my eyes open
my vision sways a drunken dance to a dying song
and i realize i've never passed out and think it can't be all bad
like falling asleep without the anticipation
and i write a story with one word twenty different ways before i forget i'm awake and so am not
and i don't once think of sheep

i've seen two faces recently that remind me of when i knew them
and i talked to them
i think while looking at the differences between these faces and the ones i froze and stored
i think about their ugliness and the attraction that freezes and stores itself
and i wonder why.

the hollow globe spins with colorful continents blurring while it rains outside the window, blurring
the record spins like a flat earth and colorful cadences come spitting out
the earth shivers like my body sometimes, for no reason, and my hairs sway like buildings breaking in half
my mouth lets out vomit like a mountain that's done waiting and igneous rock hardens on my chin and i try sleeping again
tears run down my face like cars driving home and i wish everything looked this way, like behind blurs, behind tears, and so i close my right eye and it kind of does
i feel a sensation in my chest where my heart is and associate one with the other, while knowing that my heart is an uncaring, unfeeling, unflinching, unwavering machine
i sit, writing, and the filling page says less about me than the empty one did twenty minutes ago.