Anna Evans
The Philosophy of Insomnia
The best place for not sleeping is a bed:
your muscles rest, without the side-effects
of dreams which scatter ashes in your head-
like masturbation as compared to sex.
A night not sleeping is some hours won back,
to sink the basket of the weighted scale
against the leisure time that you spent, slack
and thoughtless by the TV. Without fail
not sleeping makes philosophers of swine;
the faintest embers glimmer in the dark.
While the night sweat's damp horror pricks your spine
you hunt our history's hearth for meaning's spark.
Until at four, burnt out by disconnects,
you seek the act that numbs you, much like sex.
