Classes started up again today. Soon, we’ll be gloriously stressed, and clocked-up on whatever. Our hearts will swell to the pre-med symphony - a frantic opus, composed in the key of no sleep.

In seminars for rising pre-med seniors, (What's needed to get that med-school slot!), it’s obvious that 60% of the students who started out with us, on this track, are gone - left for other majors.
“I wasn’t happy, it was too much,” they said.

I feel a pang when I hear that undergrads we’ve shared a trench with have switched their major to basket weaving (political science), TikTok (computer science) or Phys-Ed.

I envy those deserters, I pity those deserters, I envy.. Wait, aren’t deserters supposed to be, well, you know.

Meanwhile, the rest of us, the stubborn few, cling to the dream. It’s a waking dream, for caffeinated zombies, obsessive-compulsive workaholics and maladjusted wonks who neglect personal needs, relationships and in some cases personal hygiene (not me, of course) in favor of a goal.

Maybe there’s something wrong with us?

I sway
Like on a swing
On the brink of sleep
My mind carries me motionless
And when reality calls
It rips me out of my pendulum state
Elevates my heart rate
Claims my restfulness and
Clutches onto the thoughts that I can't seem to lay
And as I slowly pry each clawing finger
Gentle words soothing over
Voices reverberating
The two swirl
Unfurl
Turning to noise
Playing in the background
As I gradually fall back into a cradle
Rocking left to right
And right to left
On the brink
Asleep

nightwatch
moon shadows
toss
moon tides
turn
what time is it
nightwatch
flip the pillow
tuck it here
tuck it there
nightwatch
creep quietly to the couch
to read until
night sounds conjur
a mystery . . .
images fade
welcome the dream
dogs barks
why do we have dogs
check the nightwatch
daybreak
sigh
what compells the day so quickly
when there has only been a
nightwatch

In wakefulness,
Your heartbeat stutters in its attempts to make peace with the impulsive evening rain.
But when you soak in the fog and embrace the coolness of winter's breath,
you will find that it will quietly sew itself into the scars that line your heart, and illuminate through your wounds in the shape of a dying ember, radiating warmth.

Darling, I miss you.
I miss that sweet smile.
I miss those curious eyes.
I miss your soul.
I miss all of you.

But, darling.
But I was hurt by the pain.
The pain when I held my tears down.
The pain when I tried to smile and it killed me inside.
The pain that when I was in my room alone and screaming.
"You were my one and only! but you just made me an option".

Darling, I didn't hate you and I never.
I really fall in love with you, darling.
Even if you stabbed my heart so deep, then you came back as if there was nothing happened.
I still love and miss you so much.

This intense emotion I feel,
In my dark, sacred space I try to conceal...
Wrecks through my mind at night,
Like some strange infectious blight...

I try to make sense of this pain,
To grasp at something, anything that is sane...
But thoughts just whizz by like a train,
Like an everlasting pinball hitting chains and panes...

No one will ever be able to interpret this complexity,
Not even Google, that ghostly reality that we depend on....
Maybe I've drowned to much in its toxicity,
To realise the joys of my own reality....

But try as I may,
Joy seems to just be another word...
For bliss, happiness or just plain gay,
And all that is far away, emotions not felt in my world...

I close the shades, but wait
The lightshow starts at 1
Music comes in at 2
At 3 is the buffet. Chalk full of great dishes
Full and tired I doze off
Time to rest

Sleeplessness is the Gift I ask not for
But grants my imagination a vivacity
That thrives as a plethora of drugs,
And I see thee as a painful love
That I simply cannot return