RE: Going Without

But what if the sleep does not claim me and the nagging gets stronger? What then do I do with my time in the late hours? What then do I use to distract myself from its pull?

My mind tells me: use what you know, what you don't have, what you do. But it's hard to memorise when the words jumble in my head, tickled by the fingers of the nagging hand. My sheet is crumpled but I cling to it. It cannot uncurl my clasping fingers even though it tries. But what if the sleep never comes? My fingers loosen. It will. Tighten once more. It's just lack of sleep, the tiredness eating at my form - it's nothing. It just makes you weak, not having that bliss of rest and it likes it when you're weak, sleep tells me. I nod, agree. You're right.

It is in the late hours that I wonder about myself, about what drives me and what fails me, about the nagging in my mind and the sneaking at the corners of my eyes. And before I sleep I doubt myself and I wonder 'what are you doing here?'

Silence.

Going Without

I feel at a loss without it, without this thing that I do. This almost compulsive need when the twinge is there. Without it, I have so much time. So much flowing between my hands and through my toes that I don't know where to store it all. I don't know which box to keep it in, which shelf to reorganise so that it all fits neatly. I thought it would be easy, without it there to tempt me, without it open and wriggling across my palm until I finally give in. But it's not. I find myself wondering if it's worth going out and buying something, just to give me somewhere to put my time. Something to stop me wasting it. To stop me craving it.

It's going well. The hollow feeling can be dealt with until the late hours. Then it's hard - it wriggles into my mind, begging and pleading and wanting. Tasting me and my need. It nags at the corners, fraying my thin sheets as it picks away at the threads. The late hours are the worst. It has gone past a feeling of victory and on to a question: why? I wring my fingers as if they will give me answers. My head thumps, go to sleep, but the nagging continues, the begging grows more insistent. I close my eyes. Ignoring it gets easier as the sleep pulls at my arms and my legs. It's better this way, it whispers. And it is. It's the better way, the good way. The other way was dangerous, it tells me, this way is sensible. It works.

I feel at a loss without it, without this thing that I do. But when sleep pulls me in I don't notice, the begging fades and does not come back until the late hours return. It's a circle, a cycle of want and need and rejection. It's waiting for me, waiting for the snap in my resolve, the crack that breaks through, the rip that tears from the frays in my thin sheet.

It's waiting.