Insomnia

It grips and does not let go. It tosses and turns you until you are a sad bundle of bedsheets sprawled and exhausted, with eyes wide open. Sleep is just a dream away but you cannot dream. You are trapped in a vortex of thought. Thoughts that play in your head like a broken record. You try to interrupt them but they come back, unbidden. You count sheep from here to Switzerland. Cows from here to farmland. Even shoes in your walk-in closet. Still wide open. You hear the haunted toilet flush (yes i have one of those in my house). The police siren outside. The wind seeping through the window. The solitary human cry that comes with the night. You take refuge in your bed. You think you cannot get any sleepier and yet you cannot sleep. You try sleeping without the pillow. With the pillow. Legs in. Legs out. Leg in leg out. Heart races and stops. Races again.
An inkling of light through the curtains. It is almost morning and i fall asleep in a dreamless world.