You ask me why I sleep,
Why I have these rituals I do.
It is because I weep for things not spoken,
Scarce heard, for the underlying fear of judgment.
I escape; to the spiraling portal of eluded darkness,
And permit myself never to be waken by sounds,
Screams, fears, dreams, or nightmares.
A dreamless sleep, my fear,
For I have escaped nothing…nothing at all.
I have only fallen, no cure for these emotions,
Which cascade like falling tears past swollen eyes.
I sleep for peace, reflection, dreams of another world;
Where tears turn into waterfalls,
Screams into the melodies of nightingales;
Spilled blood to turn back into the substance that brings life;
Cries into peals of unending laughter;
Siren sounds into the bells that announce the spring of a new life,
And not the knell of winter death;
Weapons into radiant roses, proclaiming everlasting love,
Not hate and violence.
The wish for a mind that discloses every thought of struggle and pain,
Do we long for? Do we hope for?
The mask of darkness brings us rest,
A time for our mind to forget all we have seen in a day.
A cleansing of the heart, the mind, and the soul,
In a soiled world that revolves around us.
I sleep because it brings me into a pseudo reality of never-ending bliss,
Each time I wake brings forth its own separate pain.
I only wake because it brings me closer to the night.
You ask me why I sleep.
I do so because I breathe.