I want to sleep,
but at the same time,
I don't want to.
I want to be engulfed
in empty headspace,
swimming in the darkness
of a dreamless void,
but at the same time,
I don't want to spiral deeper
into the unforeseeable
nor remain stagnant in desolation
because I know
that the longer I stay here
I would no longer
want to leave.

I want to sleep,
but at the same time,
I don't want to.
I want to drown all these voices
belonging to my insufferable demons,
their eerie whispers
seeping through every crevice of my mind,
but at the same time,
I don't want to feel the fear
that comes once I wake
and when I open my eyes again
because realization
would often dawn on me
that every single one of them
is here in the real world, too,
only, I can see them now
and it horrifies me to my very core
that they each hold the face
of somebody I love.

I want to sleep,
but at the same time,
I don't want to.
I want to bask in the deafening silence
that welcomes me when my eyes are closed
and my mind
with the hurricane of my thoughts
are just put on hold,
but at the same time,
I don't want to,
because I know all too well
that this peace I am granted
whenever my mind is shut down
is only ephemeral
and I'll always be forced out of it,
a never-ending loop,
a vicious cycle,
and I am a fool
for thinking that every time I wake,
it would be different.