Every night I sleep at the bottom of an ocean while all the church bells in Atlantis ring with merciless pride and clarity.
Closing my eyes, the darkness is a cocoon and I am a distant unseen galaxy with no sun.
Inevitability is a spider web on my face, the moon a hideous widow spinning knotted ropes out of dead nerves to pull the silent tide near, and I can't even tell if I'm breathing.
As I roll my eyes and strain through the ringing, bug-eyed intelligent thieves with possum faces stalk my home from the ivy, waiting out my heavy eyelids. Neighborhood dogs bark and yank chains and rattle fences for sake of a din that could raise the dead.
But not the deaf.
And I would be a dog on a chain, sleepless for the pack
And I would be a corpse in the ground, for failure in the attempt
But instead I toss for the silence and turn for the darkness, and clench my jaw with all the strength I can muster.
Because what else can I do?