i said you think you're invincible,
mind is a machine you said, it does
not need rest yet with all
this labour you still
reside in feeble fissured skin
features lacking in outline the
eyes that soak pleading excuses
for delirium to do more labour
of correcting what is
faulty the machine does not
function when it is faulty
but you believe, you said,
if it runs for long enough
it will fix the bugs somewhere between
the night and the morning
then i see it and i see you
fretting down the wires
gusting the leaking chip, i know
you will scope the circuit again
so i leave a trail for you to follow
but when you picked them back up,
you said you are tired
of cleaning up after me,
i said i think you are tired

I simmer in this silence
My hands ache to write something
But words dissolve into my surroundings
Before reaching my fingertips
I try to translate my dreams
Into palatable conversations
But I've lost them to anxious deciphering

Can you take this faded heartbeat,
and pour it into the white noise,
that puts you to sleep?
As I lay here
Held captive by a permanent dawn
That rests under broken skies.

oh, my dear
no feelings here
only head
down eyes
shut
no opening
until
dawn

You left without a word - no goodbyes nor hints when you’d allow me again to savor that restful slumber with a thousand snores. When was that last time I slept so well? You just left. Nothing said. Nothing.

As hardly as you set off the ticking clock and made me wait for you to sniff the consciousness out of my head, while I count stars so bright or dolly sheep after sheep so white, so was the speed of your departure. I haven’t even had the luxury of precious minutes to ask whether the sheep I was counting had any wool and was there anything wrong with being black for a sheep, and I was too shy to ask the twinkling stars what they really are.

Like a quick scene in this melancholic one-act play in this old stage in the silent theater of memory recalls or the soft fragrance of white lacunosa wax plants on moonlit nights, I hear a loving mother tell her young son to pause his game and take the afternoon siesta on the mat spread on the cool bamboo floor relaxing amidst the dry days of the Lenten season. He just feigned asleep, eyes closed and then open again. I must be dreaming. How I wish I could tell him to relish sleep. For now I want sleep, even without dreaming. Even without dreams. But sleep seems so hard to get.

Sleep has become an elusive dream.

Its always the same
A quiet tug at the back of my skull
begging me to stay awake


-em vidar

The thought of sleep enters my mind,
    But far away, just like the dawn.
I mess around with things I find,
    Devoid of any rest or yawn.

the air outside is still
as though the world
is a living room
and the trees furniture
shouts arousing fear
sound close at hand
aggressive threatening
as though directed at me
a tiny spider crawls
up the front of my shirt
one of those that makes
a web of your head
and itches all day
a car more noise than power
echoes it's exhaust sound
round the terraced houses
then
all becomes quiet
as though waves have
mellowed into a millpond
a bird sings
the most haunting beautiful
refrain,  lonely chanteuse
filling the airwaves
finally I sleep again