Sleep Deprivation

I choose to represent myself with a first post regarding my recent state of being - sleep deprivation. Not simply the title in itself, but its many symptoms and harrowing side effects. I will be brief and resist from divulging too deeply...as I am suffering from sleep deprivation.

And the circle goes round.

You are alert, you are focused. As you peer from beneath steady lids the view seems slightly grainy, sure, maybe even a little wavy as your head begins to tilt ever so gently back and forth. But you are awake, you are alert. Like a silent rush of water, silence fills your head and all around you is a nonsensical bout of garble. You've yet to realize this however, being so caught up in pride that you're actually still staring at a continual focal point. If only the little bastard would stop moving. You finally comprehend that the last time you registered any sort of outside noise was minutes ago, so you give your entire body a little shake and with a 'whoosh' you are once again awake, once again alert.

Moments go by. The image before you begins to swim and once more, the battle has commenced. There are two individuals before you know where once only one, and they have the unhappy tendency of blending in and out from one another as you leer stupidly in their direction. This is taking much too much energy. A bubble of a yawn creeps up in your throat and the pressure is enormous but, almost in denial, you stuff it down with a gasp and a clenched jaw. You WILL prevail. Shake after shake of your head and that vision will not stick - that haunting rush is returning. Soon your hearing will be breached.

Time passes, eerily calm, leaving you confused and unsure if it is all over or if the worst is yet to come.

And then the eyelids. Twould be futile to keep up morale at this point, for even the toughest of warriors admit defeat at such a point. Those two folds of skin are drooping, shoving their 450 pounds of sheer imaginary weight down onto your face as you squint in an ironic effort to keep them lifted. Just one second, one split second to regain your strength. They drop. With a deafening crash, they drop. Darkness blankets you and it is as if your entire body has sunk into a pool of sand, sucked deeper and deeper with gentle tugs on your limbs that you dare not resist.

A shake, a jerk. You are awake, you are alert.

Your head is falling and you cannot even notice, the action simultaneous with the toying that your eyelids have resumed. Again and again, you crash and rebirth. The agonizing torture of the final bout.

From a distance, the stretching of lips resounds in your ears and forth from that far-off, moist abyss comes a gush of breath that explodes forth into a great net of a yawn, ensnaring all the world what for its haggardness.

Over. All over.

You lay, eyes closed and body slumped over that sham of a desk, fingers crumpled in a pathetic attempt at an enlivened clutch.

A bell rings, unheard by the fallen soldier.


I NEED TO SLEEP, DAMMIT!


.me.