Dark

My mind is restless, wakeful at a dark and lonely hour. 

Its cars run over a track well-worn, used many times before, until it runs it raw and my thoughts bleed. 

I cannot stop the thinking, the emotions chasing after each other in my head, round and round and round. 

Breathing hard, I steady myself. I am afraid of insomnia. I always have been. When I cannot sleep, I panic. I get scared, and I cry. 

Sometimes, instead of facing this, instead of looking into the darkness, I cry out for help. The next morning, it does not pay off well. 

The bags under my eyes are full of the baggage of dreams never dreamt, and they are dark and bruised with rubbing them when I tried to make myself tired. 

Sleep is a blessing that sometimes escapes me, and I know not why. I'm thoroughly and honestly exhausted, and yet... 

Here I am, awake. No one to run to, no one to call... No one but You, Abba. 

Help me, be with me, stay with me, rock me back to sleep. Lord, my future terrifies me, the darkness terrifies me, and I am in a panic, a tiny ship on a never ending sea of consciousness. The storms of life seem conquerable in the light, but the darkness is overwhelming. 

Jesus, it always has been, if I am alone. I know I am never alone, but I also know that your presence in my mind is optional, and the choice is mine. I may kick you out, for you are a perfect gentleman and will not stay where you are unwanted. 

Sometimes though I wish you'd be louder. Your comfort is so quiet that I have to choose over and over again to hear it over the drumming of my heart and the cymbals of my thoughts. 

I am still afraid of the dark

But not when you are here. 

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray (dear abba) my soul to keep. 

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take. 

C.S. Lewis

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."


-C.S. Lewis

Insanity

Loud noises at night
induce some rather sleepy
floormates to the edge.

Humorous Villanelle

How doth one write a villanelle,
with words rich in power and might?
Be patient my dear, time will tell.

How can one write in Rivendell,
the elves always get into fights!
How doth one write a villanelle?

How should I write from a prison cell,
my mind is dark with the starkness of light!
Be patient my dear, time will tell.

How ought you to write of that dreadful smell,
what poetry form should you write?
How doth one write a villanelle?

How can I write when in love I fell
with poetry of form so tight?
Be patient my dear, time will tell.

How can I use poetry to expel
my thoughts on the moon so bright?

How doth one write a villanelle?
Be patient my dear, time will tell.

Hai-Five (or five linked haikus)

Sky is vast and whole
Steady as it moves on as
We wake or slumber

Rain cares not for us
Falls on the just and unjust
Indiscriminate torrent

Sun heeds not man's word
Wild and free, for God alone
Is he broken in

Clouds move like the sea
Looking up at them is like
Dwelling in the deep

Superb and brightly
Colored, the world above is
Not like the dirt here.