---

George Lewis Avery

---

ah sleep
that gentle narcosis
what refreshes the body
and rejuvenates the mind
who needs it
certainly not i
i was a man who never slept
although sleep followed me
with her coy eyes ogling
from out the dark confines of my study
or from the stark maw of an alley
as i crossed the bustling boulevard
enroute to some urgent venture
she loitered in the shadows beneath
every lamppost along the avenues
fluttering her painted lashes
vieing for my attentions
but i would not acknowledge her
with boldness i diverted my eyes
i burned the candle at both ends
and in the long run it paid dividends
i d become a successful man
with a doting fiance
and a secure future
but sleep would not be dismissed
i had scorned her openly
and her ego was bruised
with my impending engagement
i began to experience migraines
what became more intense
with each coming day so that
soon i could not abide the sun
even dark glasses gave me no relief
my eyes had become sensitive
to even filtered patterns of light
i was in constant pain
i sought help but treatments failed
out of desperation
i shut myself away
i became a recluse
with heavy curtains drawn
on the windows of my apartment
i no longer ventured outside
i had all my meals delivered
my fiance s knock went unheeded
her messages unanswered
too easily i was a forgotten
but more significant was it
that i remained pain free
the headaches did not return
i sat behind my armoured stile
with an agreeable smile
listening to the hustle and the bustle
of life outside my dark fortress
traffic passing voices chirruping
like crickets in a faraway field
and it soon occurred to me
this was no accident
i had been sought out by sleep
to be her courtier and she
whose selfish piety eclipses all others
would not be denied me this tyme
as with nimble fingers
she massaged my temples
bringing me to the brink of rapture
how she had gained entry into my room
remains a mystery but more
and more i was become enamoured by her
so much so that i begrudged nothing
of what she had done to win my favor
i was convinced i had wronged her the more
i indulged her whims and the while we loitered
it seemed that time had ceased to exist
so confident i was of absolution
i verbally pledged her my troth
whan a blow was struck
outside the door to my apartment
what made the shy maid slip away
and with her hasty retreat
i felt a pang rend my cavernous core
theirs was a most untimely arrival but
the rapping was unlike any other
it was more of a thud
as if some weight had fallen against the timbers
listen ... for there it was falling

again

and again

[go away] i commanded
although in vain for the assault continued
THUD THUD THUD
without regard to my loud objections
angered by the industry of my visitor
i assayed to rise and dismiss him
only to discover i could not
sleep s fetters held me firmly ensconced
i fumbled in the darc ness for the door
but it was not where it should have been
inching around in the cramped quarters
i was met by a corner
and then another
and another

and

another

it took me some moments to grasp
this was not my apartment
but a resinous box
now panicked
i began to claw at the timbers even while
serrated splinters tore loose my nails
my fingers raw and bleeding and my nose
insensed by the sweet sickness of pine
while from above
wafted the faint whistling
of an industrious gravedigger
as with each shovels payload
loose particulates trickled down
through the cracks
stinging my bloodveined eyes while
the taste of raw earth wetted my tongue
and my throat so dry
that i was strangling on the coarse silicates
of my own frenzied SCREEEEEEEEEAMS
frozen in a perpetuum
of inescapable wakefulness

woe is me
for with laced lips
sleep had drugged me
and missing the alarm
i awakened to discover
overzealous inheritors
had inhumed me
prematurely

~iamTROLL

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