Bedtime

 

Do you ever lie there at night,

With memories running through your mind

of times gone by, to come, to never be?

I heard meditation lets you slow these down,

See all of them at once or not at all,

To just be there - thoughts floating through your mind

like tiny boats sailing the wind in a breeze,

Peacefully gliding through your consciousness

Like a kite rippling though the sky on a crisp blue Autumn day.

 

My mind is more like a hurricane - 

A maelstrom of thoughts blasting and zapping through my brain

On a wind that's blowing a gale and ripping out tree's,

Smashing waves of memories against my drowning tranquillity

In great gouts of vivid, tangible thought.

 

It's an electrical storm of vision,

Synapses popping and zapping and exploding

with the power of uncontained energy,

As my body vibrates with the static hum of my mind.

 

It's worse when I'm tired.

As if the weakness of my body feeds the hunger of my mind.

Like some untamed animal It thrashes and kicks and claws

against the restraints of my consciousness,

Screaming that this! This needs to be heard!

No, this!  This needs to be seen! 

No no THIS!  This needs to be felt!

 

And I lie there, awake, fighting it,

But really just along for the ride,

Until exhaustion quietens the beast

and I drift into restless, broken, fitful sleep.