I've noticed just how much of our talking waits
until bedtime - as if until then
we have lacked permission to pause
until we've undressed and bundled ourselves
into our duvet time-capsules.

Alas, it’s then
when the competing urgency of sleep rises
and meets our log-jammed thoughts

it’s then when our fight fades,
when our wide meander sprawls,
exhausted of its pungency

And its then
when our ability to cement thoughts
cracks in the face of creeping sleep
rerunning its classic dreams
and rebuilding forgotten worlds
that we’re fated to later abandon in the shudder of dawn,
and the demands of a new day.

And so, we delay any conscious introspection
and leave our contemplations to our advancing Sandman
as we slumber and sleepwalk in his wake.