Chasing Words Poem by Robin Bennett

Oh insomnia, what am I going
to do with you?
It takes a stampede of horse pills
to quiet these church bells in
my mind.
I'm the black sheep type sleeper,
always counting words;
Sometimes I swear they treat me
like the ugly stepchild they never had.

I never know what I'm going to get
in this rusty red see-saw relationship.
Fickle one day, fashionably late the
next. Can't even begin to tell you
how many times I've been stood up.

At times, I just throw plastic
letters onto the floor and try to make
some kind of uncommon nonsense
out of it all. I found out yesterday,
I'm just two consonants short of going
from alone to lonely. Hardly calming!

I should just start collecting stray calico
cats and stock up on house coats now.
Hell, now I can't think of even one word.
I'll just crawl into my sexless bed and slam
the curtains shut. Nothing to do
but scream at my asylum chic
walls and wait for Australia
to wake up.