Battling Sleep At Midnight

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