Midnight arrives like an informant
Silent
Hooded
Slipping into the room without permission
Sleep is the double agent
Hovering at my shoulder
Offering peace with one hand
And betrayal with the other
My thoughts move in covert patterns
Shadows crossing shadows
Each one a classified file
I’m too tired to open
Yet too wary to ignore
The air is cold with surveillance
The hum of the night
A wiretap pressed against my pulse
Even the darkness feels interrogative
Leaning close
Waiting for me to slip
I lie still
A lone operative guarding the last outpost
Of consciousness
Fighting the slow seduction
Of oblivion’s pull
When sleep finally takes me
It is not mercy
It is a black bag over the mind
A quiet extraction
Into the deep
Unmarked hours
No Sleep