Hello, reader. How are you doing? I bet you don’t like poetry. Who does? Mostly only poets, right. We’re echo chambering on our worst days– climbing together toward truth on the best days. I thought you might like to read my recent two poems about insomnia.
Are you a good sleeper? Sleeping is one of the hardest things I do. It’s pretty ridiculous…
If you want to know what I find humorous, it’s funny to have multiple poems with the same title in the same zine. Here are my two poems about insomnia. They both occupy a dreamy space.
insomnia
My ancestor comes out of the water
to stand on the wet sand.
She takes a human form.
She tells me she loves me.
This vision when I’m trying to sleep
arrives to save my life
because insomnia
is one piece of the family illness.
My ancestor believes
I’m using the weird gifts
she handed me in confused grappling
yet amazing ways.
So she keeps telling me I’m safe.
I’m either in a boat,
on the rocky part of shore,
or floating gently above with stars.
I ask my body to relax into
the dark places
and trust her to hold me till morning.
insomnia
Kinda like the cat will come down from the tree
when it’s ready,
I will fall asleep when I’m tired enough
to swim through the tree roots
toward the shore of belonging.
Meanwhile I’m stuck alone at one in the morning,
hoping God has mercy
and kisses my brow with her relaxing love
which has the power to get me
back on a normal schedule.
what to do
If you can’t sleep and don’t know what to do in the middle of the night, I suggest writing poems about insomnia. It’s free.
At this point I start writing poems in my head without my permission. Sometimes I get up to write them down so they won’t fly away before morning.
A new hat genius will be out soon, once I can draw the pictures and go to the copy shop.
