Restless/can't Sleep

i hate this thing

that keeps me up at night

watching headlights going by

they should be home

in bed

asleep

i should be here

in bed

asleep

not sitting in the half-dark

writing witless sentiment with no

direction and no meaning

while he sleeps alone

oblivious

to the fact that i'm not there

(at some point he will wake up

-i know this in my bones-

and reach for me, one eye half-open

i know the word he'll say

questioning

and before he knows that he's awake

he'll sleep again

curled around my pillow

in the morning he won't know

that i was gone)

this fucking spinning

drives me crazy

makes me mad

(der than i was before)

makes me crawl across him in the dark

feeling blindly (my night vision is a joke)

to find the shirt that he tossed down

the night before

put it on

slip out of the room and curse

the creaky door

i want him to wake up

i don't want to be the one

to break his sleep

and the birds are taunting me

with their cold nocturnal cheer

and the house sings melancholy

with the buzzing of the fridge

and the hum of the computer

and the occasional sigh

of a century-long life

of watching people come and go

through broken doors

and in the chair we bought at goodwill

bright and dumb with optimism

i will sit and burn my energy off

writing loose and manic phrase

waiting for the light

and when the day comes i will crawl back in

beside him while the sun rolls over

bakes the earth and us

in tepid light

exhausted, wrung out, pale

delirious

sleep will take me in

and my thoughts might be forgotten

if i'm lucky and if not

i'll pick the ones i like

and kill the rest.