you'd think this would be another poem about
the rhythmic disturbance of insomniac instances
of ideas playing themselves out like cascading
tumbling forces wearing holes in the soles of their
metaphoric shoes as I use big words to stump you
into believing that you know what I'm talking about
but the truth is that you don't know and you won't know
but you turn it around and put it under a microscope
and you analyze my syntax and my use of frantic diction
and you tell yourself that you know what I'm feeling
because you used all of the methods they taught you
but who are they and how do they know what it means
to be awake at all hours of the night not because of
insomnia but because the thoughts of inferiority won't
let me be because I let myself believe too many things
and they are the tireless echoes of ghosts in the nighttime
that refuse to give me
peace.

Three hours sleep last night
I still can't sleep
though it's long past midnight
two, three a.m has slipped
by & I cannot deny
it's time to feel tired
It's not thinking of you
that's keeping me awake for once
not all my worries
or a film or even this poem
a mystery, my lack of sleep
perhaps it's the lack of rain
or the fact that there's no moonlight
to soothe & lull my eyes
I should never hold
political discussions with anyone
at night,
I know.