Magnified, sanctifiedBe the holy nameVilified, crucifiedIn the human frameA million candles burningFor the help that never cameYou want it darker — Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker
The chorus to this song is a brilliant exposition of where I’m at.
I’ve not been this flayed out, twisted and broken for a long time.
It’s going to end.
God knows how we back ourselves into a place where, in my case, the thing that’s really caught me out is the absence of sleep.
1am
2am
3am
Not even a glimmer of shut-eye.
Too many thoughts.
Too many scenarios.
Too many demons.
One thing I remember from the dim and distant past, when I was caught in the maw of another storm, was that I could always sleep. Then again, I was 20 and by the time I got to bed I’d worked 18 hours and so my body simply fell to the ground and I was claimed by the angels of a better day, which of course never came.
I realise that what I’m describing has no focal point or name with which to lend meaning to my coded verse but let’s just say that sleep is something that I now long for and even grabbing 40 winks during the day doesn’t come easily or in most cases at all.
Perhaps it’s time to pray that or to accept my fate to be held aloft to the late-night gods of chance.
Until tomorrow or when I next write.