Insomniac Marathon

You can’t reach it.

Most people are relatively sane. Others are insane and don’t know it. Some only think they’re insane. Others, like me, took a left-hand turn off the path to insanity, and ended up somewhere in between.

I gotta get away. Release me off this penicillin, Zoloft, Vicoden, whatever-the-fuck I’m on. I can feel the holes burning in my stomach. I can feel the makeup melt off my face. The fan blows cold air at my brain, buzzing, buzzing, and I can’t sit still. There’s a firefly in my room and it can’t get it out, I can’t get out, it’s gonna die in here and I’ll never find its body. I can’t see it when it’s not lit up, I’m afraid of it, like the times when I was little and I’d hide under the covers from mosquitoes; either that, or I’d call my mom to kill it. But this time, I’m older, I’m alone, and the gold blinking lights are supposed to be harmless. Are they?

Lights, they swirl; red, around, around, around, chasing my pencil across paper (I have no better flashlight), chasing my wrists. I am clean, clean, pure from the world of the day. I am frozen, locked, buzzing in the night. I am holy in this dark, nothing can reach me, only my own thoughts, eating away at me and making tiny sounds like a mass of little white, writhing maggots. It sounds like static and tingles like pricking stars.

I lean back, neck tipped up and pointed foolishly toward a possible sword in the dark, and close my eyes. After a while, I can’t tell if I’ve been sleeping--or has my mind finally gone utterly blank? I try to remember the clock. 4:38, now 5:06. Did I fall asleep? Oh please no, I can’t….If I did, then I’ve lost. I’ll have to ride a roller coaster, I’ll have to let her be the one to kiss me. She’ll win and I will have failed her because I’m too weak.

When we face each other, we’ll be on opposite sides, tentatively holding our ground, cautious. Kisses aren’t sideways, they’re head-on collisions. Each of us is striving to be alone in our own cars, driving, meeting perfectly halfway. In the dark, how long will it be before we can see each other coming? I’m alone here, and neither logic nor irrationality can reach me. I’m not ill enough to be put away, not right enough to keep this night away.