I lie awake at night
Plotting revenge
Im not sure I’ll ever take
I **** the meat juice from my finger
While I cook a messy spaghetti sauce
And miss kissing someone
I delete distractions from my phone
Only to watch hours of Hulu
And also to sit for hours in the woods
I respond to a text from a week ago
For whatever reason
The stamina now in my fingers to type
I think of my sister
And cover my room in crystal protection
I feel bad about myself
And remind myself
Not to feel bad about myself
I pet my kitten
And wonder how she likes this new home
She loves my mom
Which delights me to no end
I feel my heartbeat
Pulse in my toe
And wonder what’s going on
With my circulatcion

Only slept little:

you were looking for something --


and then time crawled on.

In crowded halls, ivy clad, walk the sleepless zombies - the walking dead.
They’ve come to grapple, the chosen few, in trials by pen and pencil too.

Long ago we quietly agreed to trade studies and stress for a lives of ease.
The fire of competition burns within, a pyre fueled by challenge and adrenaline.

We’ve been grinding from morning’s light to dark midnight, fueled largely by tasty caffeine's bite.
Sleep’s a distant memory, that’s been swapped for all-nighters, notecards and highlighters.

Professors who’ve taught us now plant briar-like, trickster-questions, to fraught us.
Have we synthesized it all - the labs, lectures and quotes, the chapters, quizzes and notes?

The hours we’ve spent, dissecting texts, parsing equations, crafting essays - pay off now.
Or don’t - the clutter of fact, theory, and tensors will separate the scholars from the pretenders.

But fear not, dear reader, for we’re tough, seasoned cowgirls and this is just another rodeo.
True, we chew erasers not tobacco and ride desks or lab stations, not bucking broncos
But some are thrown, bruised and scarred - finding their future careers discarded.

We’re required to hand-write our test essays out, a trap that negates AI with age-old foolscap.
We know the challenge, we’ve studied and crammed, to tackle the hurdle of ‘top-tier’ exams.

Beyond the stress beacons the sweet release - of holiday parties and presents that please.
But perhaps the sweetest possible tease, is the promise of slumber and weeks study free.

And I awake in the night, the aches and pain of tearing fibers everyday to have my body rebuild them
Its an unease, tossing and turning in my bed
Turning on music with no words, nightly hymns
Yet my mind drifts to a place, not so far, for now
That was simpler, filled with new experiences with new friends new places new family
I never quite knew if it was excitement, fear, or the newness that made me feel like I was on top of the world, maybe because I was out in the world
Of course I only remember the good, the fondness of the past grows with each passing day we stray further from it
But, when I awake in those nights, I feel a longing, the breath leaves my chest and it feels hollow and shallow to breath
I miss the nights wondering the town, drinking and sharing and getting lost with people I hardly know, yet know better than anyone within 2,000 miles. I miss the family that took me in, though I was anxious and could barely communicate, it was comfort that I remember the most. I miss the routine. I miss walking and the weather and the people and the clothes and the countryside. I miss how old that country is, the food, the lifestyle. I missed being a person, with a blank slate and being an explorer.
But, most of all, I miss the mundane of that place, the bus rides, the room, the dog, the walks. I missed the person I was and the life I was allowed to live.

Even if I were to go back, it would not be the same
It was the time and place in my life that I cannot revisit, not the location
so maybe that's what I feel in my chest, a longing for something that once was and can never be again
and even more than that, the hollow shallow breath is the fear of losing even just one of those memories, lost to time, to unconnected friends, to the country and family I left with tears in my eyes and cries in my chest when riding one last time to the plaza

in the emptiness
of all these lonely nights
i drift slowly to the planet in my heart
and its knock
knock
knocking
still mock
mock
mocking
and stop
stop
stopping
my every line

heels clicking
glasses chinking
the whisper of a forgotten light
flickers on and off
an endless chime

I just let the ringing echo
and in my mind
the sounds of my planet are the only peace I can find
so fluttering heart
un-still and unrefined
crack open and splutter onto the duvet
and let me listen to the sounds of the planet inside

This time of night
Is an old trap
Familiar
And dog-eared
And well-worn
And haunted

Nothing good happens after two
—it's a funny little adage—
And I'm a funny little insomniac
Begrudgingly listening to my racing
Heart
In the silence
The restlessness gathering
Storms beneath my skin
Lightning sparking wildly across my mind

This is the hour of madness
This
This is when
E v e r y t h i n g
Unravels
And all I can do
Is hope my muscles stay stuck to my bones
Hope my veins stay caged in my skin
Hope my lungs stay expanding against the weight
Of the darkness

Dream, tell me
what have you heard
from the gossiping stars?
did they let my wishes
fall into the hands
of hummingbird nests?
did the quiet ocean blue
bring waves of things untrue?
Were you deceived by piano keys
lingering songs & eulogies?
Does the sun cleanse your lethargy
or are you like me?
Where it never reaches you in time
before everything fades to a quiet dark
tell me, Dream.