Sleepless

Context: I went through a few weeks of my life a little while ago where I had insomnia. Some nights were worse than others and if you've ever had that experience you know how bad it is, if you have not I sincerely hope you never will. I wrote this a night after getting about 5 hours and it was the first piece of writing where I actually tried to make it sounds good and I went back and edited it a bunch. I hope you enjoy, this one means a lot to me.

Open your eyes, see the world dark as the early morning. It is not a new world, it's the same one you fell asleep in. Flop out of bed, onto the cold, dank floor and lay there as long as you may. See if we care. You are late. What worse travesty you could commit we do not know. We call you students but you are the drones. You are the zombies. You are the sleepless. Doctors call it insomnia. We call it lazyness. You just call it High School. You tell us we are the authorities. We don't even control our own lives. We give you the greatest gift of all, the gift of knowledge. You are up late into the night with your work. We are up late into the night worried you aren't working. You are frantically accepting our pitiful tid bits of information. Not grateful for a single word. Bed by midnight, up by six. That's plenty. I am happy. Can't you see how happy I am. I'm gliding through life on a ice rink of sleeplessness and it makes me think about all of you. I remember that time. That time not so long ago. That time when I was you. I must know that there will be a time when you become me. We are we, and we all live life. Each one of us skating by on this glorious, sleepless cloud of life.


Sorry if that was confusing, let me explain just the perspective. It's written by a bitter old teacher reflecting on the students of his school. "We" is teachers "you" is students. Once again, I hope you liked that, it really did mean something to me.