I Don't Sleep Anymore

I slept my way through school.

Dreamed of the languid days

Of summer while textbooks flew

In one ear and nestled inside.

I pretended to drive to work,

Where I wrote proposals

And gathered money for women

Who did not care about me.

Thoughts of rebellion,

Mutiny, reclamation and freedom

Coiled like snakes in the Delphi

Crouching twixt my eyes.

I could be someone.

I could be anyone,

According to cartoons,

That deserved to be someone.

I slept across the aisle,

Where she pointed poppy flowers

In my face,

And bid me breathe their scent deeply.

I was unconscious when my children were born.

Their small feet, pressed into ink,

Were like the buzzing of a streetlamp

Outside my window in the night.

I chewed rocks and counted sheep

When the world turned in its axis

And age crept alongside me,

Familiar like a lover.

I woke when I was old,

And my arms were a gun

That I pointed under my chin

And prayed for another chance.