Insomnia
by Phil Slattery
Abstractions
Lying on my back
Twisted in a sheet binding like a shroud
Images of the past
Flood my brain
Spilling into my body
A silent hysteria clawing and dragging
Its loathsome way through my bones
Convulsing quietly
Eyes straining for the way home
My restless being flops and flutters
As a dying fish stranded on a dark shore
Eyes bulging to the stars
As it
futilely leaps and springs
Trying to glimpse the sea a final time
Before it withers.