insomnia's embrace

Lie awake tired, won’t go to sleep, regret it in the morning,

repeat. 

I try to break the cycle, 

but then something stops me.

Oh wait, it was just myself, again,

like always,

but I'm stuck and

I can't get out.

It feels like I don't even see the way out.

The end,

it's not in sight. At least not in line with my eyes.

My perspective is always a 

captivating, glowing screen,

greedily stealing my sleep, but I don't know

what it needs it for. I also don't know why I

stay online when my body tells me

to shut down. I don't know why I

don't listen when I can hear it

loud and clear, screaming through my

falling eyelids that I force to stay open for

just "one more video".

Curled up on my bed in the

same position as always, I keep looking back at

my clock thinking I have time and saying

"one night won't kill me" but really it's

every night and before I know it,

it will kill me and I'll be buried with a

cell phone in my hand and dried tears on my face

wondering why I didn't stop sooner,

but it wasn't a matter of why, it was a matter of how

because I always wanted the pain

to end, but it felt so good that I

wouldn't tell it to stop. Before I know it,

it's two in the morning and I've thought about

this for the last four hours while simultaneously,

and ironically, watching YouTube videos that

I don't want to watch, just to fill a 

void in my head and the minutes in

the hour that I could've spent sleeping with

my favorite stuffed animal. But instead I'm finally

getting up to brush my teeth and throw out my

empty pint of ice cream with some melted parts 

still stuck to the bottom that I was supposed to

clean out three hours ago but now I don't

have the energy because it's two in the morning and I

want to go to sleep. I trudge into the bathroom,

regretting my decisions like always, and stare in the

mirror, wondering what I've done to myself. I get back to

my room, close every drawer that my OCD-wired brain tells

me to, turn off the lights, and crawl into bed. My

alarm clock is staring at me, I can feel it, so I

look over and it's half an hour later and I

ask myself why it took me thirty minutes to

brush my teeth. I stare at the ceiling for a little while

longer, recapturing every moment I

hated that day, and remembering everything I

have to do tomorrow. So I finally shut my

eyes at three in the morning, five hours later, with

too much on my mind and my plate, but at least I'm

finally giving myself the rest I needed,

right?