On some nights, if you listen very carefully. The songs that sleep sings for you sound a lot more sweeter. She is a cruel mistress. When you don't need her, that's when she will seduce you with her gentle whispers. And when you need her the most, she will look down upon you with judgemental eyes. The way you'd look at a pest, at a rodent and drum the marching beats of the wall clock.
Usually it's just a distant click, but on those nights you can feel sleep drumming on your ribs with all her might. That little feather on your chest feels like a boulder weighing down on you. You can breathe freely and yet the air refuses to enter your lungs. This is one of those nights.
Can you feel it too? Are you also in the same place as I? Do you also feel that your internal paralysis prevents you from screaming your heart out? Every second you lay awake at night, helplessly, listening to the staccato of the seconds hand, tick tock tick tock tick tock, knowing very well how badly you need to sleep, but the hands of the clock also mock you. Tick tock tick tock tick tock.
I'm wide awake. My eyes are bloodshot as usual, my back is killing me, my whole body aches, I don't have the energy to get off my bed. But I am wide awake. I know that I need to be at the top of my game tomorrow. I know that I'm another filthy rodent in this rat race. I know that I need to win this race, that's the only way out of here.
But I am wide awake and I can see myself falling behind. Like so many rats before me have. We all have a breaking point, when we can't run any longer and just give in to the stampede of all those hungrier than us, chasing us from behind. I have been running on fumes for quite some time. Doing what I do, doing everything that I do, by sheer force of will. But how far can that take me? Maybe I should stop pretending that I can go on. Or I can do what I have always done.
Remind myself, that I just need some rest and I will be back where I was before, and back to who I was before. Just a little rest and I can run a bit longer. A few hours of sleep and I can do it all over again. Sleep. That's all I need, that's all I ever needed. Sleep.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock....