Insomnia Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Even sleep
has fallen asleep

leaving me awake
guarding it

with my consciousness.

Pain gnaws
at my bones

nerves...slithering snakes
bite my mind.

I watch its slow paralysis

thoughts and dreams
in death throes.

Then the stillness of stillness.

The hours
mock me.

Laugh at me.

I cry tearless tears.

Birds open
a door into dawn

with their
voices

then
(lock) (it)

leaving the night & I

trapped in this
somewhere else

of nowhere.