* * *

Sleepless agony, to lie and claw at Air, to gasp for dreams, to drift through flickering Lives of might-have-beens, which pry and draw at Odds with shifting currents where the sickening Bends return you, stepping in that stream And stepping in that stream again, again, Against your will and stepping in that stream Until a thousand pointless lives of men (Which are your own if you will only own Them so) pass by you, and the night is thick With living and reliving, and you, prone Beneath the weight of thoughts and waiting, sick For sleep, can only flail and burn and ache, Reaching, dreaming, praying, breathing, “Wake.”