I NEED TO SLEEP: Poem II

Though everyone must sleep, insomnia is usual for me,

When I write, my sentences grow to what they’re meant to be,

My Mum is proud, but wishes I’d care more about university,

What’s left of school? Pythagorus’s theorem, a few jokes,

It’s all very well to be famous, to pick at the stars

But I’ll never save the world with my metaphors

This is crazy, I need to sleep but I’m questioning it all,

I wanted to be a great man, scared of being just the norm

Their loss weighs a ton, sometimes I see their ghosts,

I turn off my phone, I’m expecting no-one,

You know, I’m waiting for my time to come,

And I’ve put my heart on voicemail,

You’ll find me behind the lines of my sentences,

If not, you can leave a message.

I look at my old teddy bear covered in dust,

On the table in the middle of my stuff,

And I compare it to my fear, because I’ve got so used to it,

Yet it’s been a long time since I should have got rid of it,

If I threw it out I would miss it,

There it sits surrounded by all my shit,

I feel a bit lonely, as I look at it,

And I’m pretty sure that I just saw it wink

I think of the station, the guy I met,

He was my age, the thought churns my stomach up,

He said ‘I sleep rough every night’ and yet

Under my duvet I’m so ashamed that all I said was ‘Good luck',

This town, an action film,

Break ins, aggression,

Since we were kids we’ve known,

You could say my neighbor has the same life as Al Pacino,

She also takes pills and loses her money at the Casino

All the choices that separate us, walk straight when we lose the way,

In front of the mirror all this weight, I see myself alone and far away,

and I write until it’s late, and poems' the only thing I rate,

And I’ve been fucked by fate; if I touch wood, I get a splinter straight away

Outside the window an ambulance siren glides past,

So afraid that it will stop I clutch my hand to my heart

Childhood filled with pain so of course,

Love seems like the lottery, and that it’s not for us.

5 am in the morning and the seconds run like light

Once again I promised I’d get an early night

But I remember the day I decided to follow my dream

Whilst all they see is fire, I notice the phoenix,

So tell me mate, what’s it like up there?

Seems that in this business cocaine holds a big share,

It’s seems you’re freaking out, that you’re sad and crazy.

That you regret some things you said, not surprising

A villa by the sea for my Mother,

Is that too much to ask? I don’t want her to grow old in the gloom,

In my laboratory, I write all night with some tears

I want to end my life in the sun, I’m not asking for the moon.

20 years old, I hardly noticed time fly,

Some regrets will always be by my side,

But every time the memories build up,

The pillow in my arms, imagine it’s her I hug

Patrick, solid, strange and strong

Alien of a lonely microphone

It’s late I know, soon people will be off to work

But here in Morpheus’s arms I lurk,

So I breathe, I take a moment,

I imagine I can fly

And like a perfectionist faced with the leaning tower of Pisa,

I close my eyes.