Watch Me Sleep, Will You? Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

My father resigned to his bed
And you know how I knew?
He left the television vulnerable
And what disturbed me was
The television’s monotonously
Eerie sound.
A screeching horror.
A flat, blunted line of terror.

My father was unshaken.
He was peculiarly idle on his bed
And he looked like he was
Having the best of the heavens
In his slumber
And how I envied him.

Sometimes, I wonder
Will someone ever watch me sleep?
Will someone tell me
That I am having
The best of the heavens
In my slumber?
I do not know
Because people are either
Too uninterested
Or too sedentary
To saunter past the hollow halls
Of a home
Straight into my room of pungent dreams
And look at me as I lay there,
On my bed
And think to himself or herself,
“My, he’s having the best of the heavens
In his sleep.”

But then, they would not
Look for me
Nor at least take an abrupt photograph
Of me in my slumber.
You know why?
Because I always leave the television too,
Making those horrendous sounds
Of monotonous deaths
Over a bed of midnight senility.

They weren’t sedentary
Nor uninterested.
They were very
Afraid of the sheer beauty
Of a man who sleeps whilst
Having the best of death,
And not of heaven.