Sleep won’t come

The bringer of sleep sits beyond the shadows at the end of my bed.

A brooding fiend, watching, waiting, deciding.

I hear his rhythmic breathing, catching glimpses of him as the moonlight breaches my heavy eyelids, smiling a sharp toothed sneer as he snorts and derides me from his hiding place.

But stays out of reach...

And sleep doesn’t come.

He shares his pungent potions in a silvery wisp to those whose minds are still and unfettered, in an embrace as warm as the all-pervading darkness which grants him his domain.

But to me the claw, the sharpened tooth, the chilling grin which tells me there is nothing but torment for me.

The taunt, the promise unfulfilled...

And sleep doesn’t come.

He fills my senses with the sound of nothing and breathes his warm sickly breath on my neck.

Itching, tossing, twisting me into a quivering shambles, craving like an addict left without release for far too long.

Then his shift is taken up by the sounds of the world awakening and he departs for other realms, pointing a bony finger as he goes, away with the morning light.

The day is here,

And sleep won’t come