Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Blink Once for "Yes", Twice for Gibbering Insanity

I'm writing to you tonight from the last vestige of sanity, a tiny little refuge less than a mile from the border. It's after two AM, and I'm awake. It's totally inexplicable. I didn't sleep for eight hours (maybe five?) and I was certainly up long enough that I should have passed the fuck out. I should be unconscious. I'm not.

I'm awake.

Awake. Awakeawakeawake.

Insomnia brings a very special kind of insanity to the fore. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, the insomnia is the deep-seated fear, brought on by the fact that you never feel like you're ever rested, that nothing will ever change. That doing the same thing, over an over, even though it can't, it won't, it could never work, is the only thing that will ever work.

I want to cry.

What do you do when you wake up at 2? Hmm? I can't call anyone. I can't do anything. What is there to do? I can't sleep. I can't sleep. I can't sleep.

I really, really want to break down. I want to just start screaming, at the top of my lungs, until someone comes and takes me, puts me in bed, tucks me in, and kisses me on the forehead. I want to shriek, I want to wail, I want to scream.

[...]

(I went to shower. I decided that I wasn't done with this entry, though. So I'm back.)

My eyes feel like they're bulging and bloodshot. Like any second, they could burst forth from my skull and fall, worthless, to the ground. My lips, dry and desiccated, like a body left in the desert. My tongue, worthless. A muscle communicating dead and useless things through words with no meaning. My heart, worthless. A muscle beating out dead and useless things, inert feelings of no use to anyone.

How can anything change? How do things progress? I understand, yes yes, "we must be the change we wish to see in the world." And what about those days when you wake up and you know that nothing will ever change? How do you get up? How do you function? How do you cope with a reality that seems every day like it devours whole those who want to make things better? How do you live in a world that destroys those who would be our role models?

How? I really don't understand this. And I know, everyone deals with shit in their life. Rise Against says "how we survive is what makes us who we are." Life is hard, suck it up.

Well, fuck you. I make it through the days. I deal with shit. But I've never been able to suck it up and just cope. And I don't think I should have to. Why should I pretend that everything's okay? What fucking function does that serve? Well?

Trappedtrappedtrapped in my head. No one should have to deal with that.

Alright. I'm going to step out for a smoke. If I write more, I'll tell you a story.

1 comment:

Chelsea Chonlee Conlee said...

I wrote this ages ago after a night like yours. You will probably hate it. You will probably, maybe, never see this comment. Maybe.

Insomnia

Where are you

When the night creeps up

On you? The sun is thrashing

And you are

Awake. Late night coffee

Makes for a sleepless night

And you are

In frantic need for a voice

Responding

To the questions being asked,

To the shadows on the wall.

Explain to the lamp one more time

Why you are alone,

Why you have come to negotiate

Just how many times

You will move it

To a different night stand.

And the light post beams in your window

Through the blinds and the sheer shades

That you have decided

Match your bedspread, after all.

Where are you

When the stars choose it is time to dance?

Tapping your fingers on the bed frame

To the melody that lingers in your mind,

That is singing in your soul.

Your eyes are shut

And you are

Awake. A vigorous mind

Makes for a sleepless night

And you are

In fruitless need for one more chance,

For one more inadequate encounter

With the stranger you met

That has simply caused

Your incessant insomnia.



If you hate it, I am sorry. I just wanted to respond and say I read your blog. The End.