Sleep It Off? I Wish.
When I was little, I hated to go to bed. I always thought (or
perhaps this is my mother's theory that I have co-opted because it just
sounds like a Meg thing to think...) that I was going to miss something
by heading off to slumber, as though the whole world would have a party
just as I shut off the lights and pulled up the covers.
Times have most definitely changed.
I love to go to bed now. I just can't manage to sleep once I get
there. I don't care what I'm missing anymore. Let the world party like
it's 1999. I want to lie beneath my duvet, and slowly, gently, drift
off to blissful slumber. I want to wake at a normal hour, stretch my
limbs, blink my eyeballs in glorious recollection of REM sleep, and
leap from my mattress feeling rested. Instead, I get this:
A NIGHT WITH MEG
It's eleven o'clock, and I'm 'neath the covers
Alone with my quilt, and a paucity of lovers
My tea is half-drunk, cup bottom in sight
I'll now have to pee later that night...
My room feels too hot, but my window, it shuts
To prevent potential entrance of homicidal nuts...
I stick my feet from the covers to hasten their chill,
And wish the thermostat to die by the power of my will.
I set the alarm for an hour much too early,
When I will awake, inevitably surly.
Because of yet another night of tossing and turning
Dreaming of beauty sleep I must needs be earning.
I write to-do lists, I worry about money
And recall bad jokes I made that really weren't funny...
I make lists of people whom I may have offended...
And mourn silly crushes long since upended.
I dream of the future and cringe at the past
I reopen the window, to get a cool blast...
I wander down the hall to get me some milk
And come across a spider, and two more of his ilk.
Now I think about spiders, creeping about
And not just the one going up the water spout!
I check the clock again...has it been an hour?
Another night of insomnia making me dour.
I try for some stretches, I ponder meditation
I listen to music with soothing instrumentation.
I flip open the laptop, and turn on IM
Searching for another insomniac friend.
But alas and alack, everyone is in bed
With visions of sugarplums they stole from my head.
I lie on my side, I lie on my back
I tug at the covers, and then they attack
I end up in a tangle, claustrophic to a t...
How uncomfortable can one stupid sheet be?
The clock keeps on shining in sinister red
Showing two wasted hours lying sleepless in bed
I consider getting up, but I am too damn tired
How can I be both exhausted and wired?
I try special breathing, I close my eyes tight
Willing some rest to stop by tonight
But my mind is racing, and my stomach's in knots
And the window is wide now, but it's still too damn hot
The thing, though, that will keep me awake above all
Isn't the tea, nor the spider in the hall....
Not the sheets round my ankles, nor my faulty room heater
But that this poem is awful, and so is the meter!
Here is to wishing you sleep better than I.
2:52:48 AM 
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