Why must sleep evade me?
A thing of rest, arrest the soul.
Restless beauty, cold, untold.
A lie, shapeless mass meanders by
and as I sleep, the truth unfolds:
when I sleep the colors leak,
the colors slip and fade.
They break and play around my bed.
The shadows on my walls
are not angry, they are tame.
The shadows laugh, they play a game.
They reach and rake their playful claws
against my skin.
They take my mind.
Faking lines to keep me tired but always lying
to keep my flying thoughts from breaking free.
I am not free.
The walls, they trap me in dumb slumber,
passing seconds beyond number
while I scream and shake and rake
my fingernails across the door inside my mind.
My mind, mindlessly reeling.
Blindly feeling for some peeling hole,
a hole out of the wholly unrelenting crevice,
wherein a menace waiting for a certain slip,
sliding into sickness, into sleep.
The moments before sleep are bleak.
Monsters on the floorboards creep and creak.
No way to bolt the door, still unsure,
where sleep takes me and what for?
I am restless, my mind creeps.
It knows, I know, I must soon fall to sleep.

Stand at the precipice, trace the edge.
Press your body into the wall of stone behind you.
Close your eyes.
Lean out.
The wind rushes forward to catch you, but too late.
You fall.
The atmosphere cuts through your clothes, your skin.
Tumbling naked before God,
suspended only in time, the trees below stretch out their
bony fingers to catch you.
Life and death crash violently together, their impact
ripping through your body, tearing you limb from limb.
Open your eyes. Retreat.
It is not your time to fall into flight.
One day, death will give you wings, and you will rise
beyond yourself.
Not yet. Stay, a little longer.
Life must have its way.

Winter turns the skin to ash.
Darkness creeps within.
Parched for light, a lightning flash,
any hope is sin.

Sinking soul, like sinking snow,
heavy tread crush down.
All is rushing, quiet now,
colored leaves all brown.

There is stillness found in pain,
Suffering's embrace.
Empty shell seeks quiet, sane.
Lie, disguised in lace.

Darkness wants to interlope.
Crawl the other way.
Seek the agony of hope.
Live another day.

Empty grave croons for her pet,
her skeleton to hold.
Her lullaby is gentle yet,
Ominous and cold.

Winter turns my skin to ash,
sunshine I've forgot.
How can I be so bold or brash?
To be what I am not?

The sun will rise again, someday,
Maybe I'll live to see.
A kindly voice may softly say,
"Frozen soul, be free."