This is sleeplessness

This is sleeplessness.
His brain shouting in the dark as his insides tossed and turned,
filling with swirling energy that wanted to burst from his chest
and run as far away as it possibly could.
“Oh please rescue me from drowning in my own anxiety,”
his 3 in the morning plea began.
He was sinking in an ocean of over-thinking explosions,
synapses working so quickly he could
almost see the sparks when his eyes closed.

“Count your breathing.
3. 2. 1…
All alone and no future in sight.
10. 9. 8.
She never even really loved you.
6. 5. 4….
Why are you so bad at life?!?
7….”
He ran out of numbers.

Numbness washes in on the edges but offers little hope or solace.
Each second ticks into a thousand
as his life wastes away against a background of arid desert,
his naked bones bleached white and crumbling into dust.
His seed never spread and his ideas forever locked away in an empty skull
propped comically against a large cactus
like a novelty plastic cow skull in an elementary school play.

“Sweet dreams loser, in your giant empty bed.
With your mediocre sheets you bought on sale on the internet.”
The plastic make-shift shot glass stares him down with a judgmental leer
from the bedside table slash filing cabinet he got for free
from a sister making room for better things.

The unsettled feeling left from the nightmare that woke him
still hovered in the corners of his darkened room.
When had he stopped reaching for the next hand hold of life
and consigned to dangle from this frayed rope
of mediocrity and forced contentment?
When had he finally realized he was still all alone?
A monster under the bed would at least be company.
It would be better than his closet full of skeletons
that only visited on holidays and the occasional weekend.

It would be better than friends that always had
more important things to invest their time on than a steadily souring friendship.
Like milk left on the counter but never consumed,
curdling from neglect.

He needed better friends and a new book.
He needed to sleep.
3 AM had already turned to 430
and his alarm was patiently waiting for the final hour to slip away.
The swirling energy finally condensed against the surface of his mind
like a deep warm sigh.
His eyelids gave in to gravity for a last chance lap of unfulfilling slumber.

“Sweet dreams loser.”

Indeed.