Prisoner of the Night

Sleep will not grace the guilty body.
I have been left to toil and turn
isolated by the dark of a new moon.
Ice cold creeps up my legs,
striking and biting at my flesh.
Fat salt tears feed my limp tongue.
All night long, insomniac.

Too many possibilities rise like bright balloons in my mind,
while the world around me sleeps in a warm, lover's embrace.
Instead my frail body writhes in painful boredom.
How come sleep's sweet touch
will not rescue me from this ceaseless existence?
All night long, insomniac.

I could die and not be aware.
My eyes could shut, rippled blankets of flesh
and I would not know when.
The black silence suffocates me.
While all bodies are still, quiet mistresses of sleep
a haunting loss crawls into bed with me.
All night long, insomniac.

And when I finally disappear my spirit may wander free,
following the bleeding trail back to this bed, this prison.
Torturous night, never-ending cuts through me with razor-sharp teeth,
my black mind a cruel jailer, strapping, stripping, strangling,
ravaging my soul with sour regret again and again.
No mercy ever granted.
All night long, insomniac.