For Insomniacs

I am up with a case of the slightly insane, 
product of another sleepless night, 
and torturous rounds of counting 
herds of sheep
forward 
and backward,
and side to side.
It seems I have been turning 
to the rhythm of the world's 
    Chaos. 

I've rendered myself to every edge 
of this bed, like a desperate mistress.
It has touched every crevice and curve 
my body has to offer, 
held the weight of these bones
soaked in tears of panic and fright, 
watched me sell my soul to the night, 
as I twist and squirm like a worm 
UnDer a MiCrOsCoPE

Why does it feel like the loneliest 
place under the stars 
is a forest in my head 
infested with thoughts the daylight 
has no courage to shine upon?
Minutes crawl like slugs toward dusk, 
draped by a cloud of fast and anxious hours, 
     (Five minutes since I last checked,
       Three hours before sunrise)
and I'm here 
unawake in a sleep without dreams, 
yet still unable of succumbing to 
SILENCE. 

My wife rests by my side; 
I am not warmed by her loving heart, 
nor soothed by her breathing,
but seethed by an envy 
and a need to latch on, 
buckle my knees, 
rope my arms to hers, and beg her
to take me along to that realm 
my mind cannot find 
you people call
"SLEEP" 

"The horror has come now like a storm—what if this night prefigured the night after death—what if all thereafter was an eternal quivering on the edge of an abyss, with everything base and vicious in oneself urging one forward and the baseness and viciousness of the world just ahead. No choice, no road, no hope—only the endless repetition of the sordid and the semi-tragic. Or to stand forever, perhaps, on the threshold of life unable to pass it and return to it. I am a ghost now as the clock strikes four"

Sleeping and Waking, by F. Scott Fitzgerald