the sleep of the damned

When I go to bed, I lay on my side with my arms crossed around myself. I'm tired of holding myself. I wake up every two hours, every night, look into the darkness and see nothing looking back.

---

This morning I dreamt many things, but in the final scenes of my dream I sat at the bottom of a staircase watching TV. Next to me was a computer. Earlier in the dream a person I knew in my childhood was sitting at the computer. But this time, it was her. I looked over at the computer and saw her on it and at first I didn't believe it. I got up and walked around the computer to see if it was really her. She didn't look at me, she just stared at the screen with a faint smile. I felt lucky to be close to her, even if she didn't notice me, so I sat back down by the stairs. I gave her a goofy stare and she noticed me. I saw her eyes come around the side of the computer screen, which was glowing on her face, lighting her up, and she laughed and smiled at me. Then she went back to the computer. I kept doing it though, and her eyes kept making contact with mine and she would smile and laugh her lovely laugh. We were being silly together. Then when she wasn't looking at me, I just looked at her longingly, as if from a great distance. I looked at her and appreciated her beauty. In the dream I wondered what she would do if I leaned over and kissed her, but I decided that she would back away and I didn't want that humiliation. So I just kept making her laugh with my silly glances, doomed to be content in her peripheral view, I suppose.

Then the next thing I know I'm running in slow motion on a high, steep cliff above the rocky ocean. I knew that if I slipped on the gravel I would fall over the side. The gravel I was running on was spotted with all these clear puddles. I heard an ambulance next to me and I turned to see it pass. I was very nervous about taking the wrong step. I looked down at a puddle in front of me and there was a big puffed up fish (I'm certain it was supposed to be a bananafish) floating in the water. I misstepped and went plunging (still in slow motion) down the side of the cliff, watching the rock travel by me. As I fell I was thinking, "This must be a dream, I have to wake up before I hit the water," but I hit the water. I guess maybe it didn't hurt (I can't remember) because it was in slow motion but I remember an oxygen mask being placed on me and then I don't remember anything else.

Sleep can be a real bastard, sometimes.

Plus, why do they call it dreaming? I mean, if it was really my dream it would have a lot more picnics, jokes, autumn leaves, kisses, rain, sex, hand-holding, ear-nibbling, laughter, spooning, listening, sharing, deep eye-locks... all that good stuff.

Come on, brain. Go figure out how to dream and then get back to me.

---

"Crawl into my ambulance, your pulse is getting weak.

Reveal yourself all now to me girl, while you've got the strength to speak.

Cause they're waiting for you at Bellevue with their oxygen masks.

But I could give it all to you now, if only you would ask.

Don't call for your surgeon, even he says it's too late.

It's not your lungs this time, it's your heart that holds your fate." - Springsteen