Sleepless

I rolled around in my bed last night, tossed and turned and thrashed, covered and uncovered, sweat and shivered, muttered imprecations at the gods of sleep and sleeplessness.

Insomnia snuck up on me a few nights ago and clamped me in its jaws and now it's shaking me like a terrier with a rat in its teeth.

There are two things that can help me sleep when I'm like this, and I'm without both.

Sex and pot.

The former is no guarantee, but it's fun to see if it'll work.  The latter does work, but it's not possible at this place in my life.

In the dark, while I am not sleeping, my mind scrabbles in its confinement, turns endless circles, hums snatches of tuneless tunes, quotes fragments from books and movies, la, la, la, la, la.

Things are falling apart here, but I can't say it's a bad thing.  Uncomfortable, painful even, but life does that and I can handle it even if I don't want to.

Hunger

Has it been too long, my shadows?  Have I been trapped in amber and lost you?  Are you ragged and tattered, cobwebs and wisps, keening in the darkest deeps of the Lament, moaning your anguish at being abandoned?

No.

No, I think not, my beloved shades.

You know I cannot leave you for very long.  You're too much part of me.

I have been distracted, but you're still here with me.

Are you hungry?  Shall I feed you?  I didn't realize how starved we were, all of you and me too, until lately.

We're prowling, now, aware of the emptiness and wondering how to fill  it.  Beware.  Beware!  So very hungry...

I felt full.  Didn't I?  Wasn't I?  But it takes more than one meal, even a feast, to keep one from feeling those pangs.  It takes regular meals of filling stuffs, a constant diet of healthy things.  It hasn't been healthy, has it?  No.  We have supped on fairy floss and empty promises, illusions and words devoid of action and therefor meaning, and we didn't notice that we were rotting.

We.

Me.

Empty and rotting.

How have I not noticed that I was starving?

Something happened.  A word, one word, showed me.

Cunt.

Hard, sharp, reminiscent of unpleasant things and ugliness, cunt.

Something died.  I don't know if it can be revived.  There is only so much.  I have limits.  They are far, far past "normal", but I do have them.  Apparently "cunt" is one of them.  Something died.

Something died and I looked around and felt sad and pained and lonely, and hungry.

And there you were, my poor dark places, forlorn and waiting.

Waiting for me to come back and give myself over to you, let you gnaw on my bones.  Go on then, darklings.  Go on.  Eventually I may find my footing, find what will fill...fulfill...and you will have to wait and see if I return regularly or leave you again to your own devices.