On Sleep Deprivation

            Eyelids like bricks. Stunted movements. Don’t even get me started on bright lights. Squinting through the words on the page you desperately try to keep reading despite all desire to collapse right then and there. Coffee is practically an elixir. Yet it is a fickle friend. One minute it is sustaining you and the next you are yawning with nothing to show for your liquid effort but a racing heartbeat. This scratching desperation that is consuming every part of you is akin to a few other choice feelings. Racing for water after a night of heavy drinking. Walking into an air-conditioned room after sprinting in ninety-degree weather. You. Need. Sleep. At this point it is all you can stand to think of. Scanning the table in front of you with an accusatory glare it is easy to blame the schoolwork sitting in front of you. Truthfully you know it is your own fault for putting things off to the last minute. This makes you increasingly bitter. The faint buzz from the lights overhead are practically lulling you into a stupor. Your mind drifts.

            He isn’t calling. He isn’t texting. No smoke signal. No carrier pigeon. Your throat is constricting and your stomach is flip-flopping on its own accord. You can barely stand the silence. You shift your weight on the couch you’re sitting on and pretend to be taking in the scenes on the television in front of you. Eyes fixed forward but mind wandering back to the last time you spoke. Hearing from him would be like being pulled out from under a frozen lake at the very last moment before slipping out of consciousness. Freeing.  Yet in reality you’re not free at all. Trapped by this inexplicable need it is though time is at a standstill.

            Mildly snapping back to reality you pivot your neck to read your notes again. Is this even helping? It floats through your brain along with the information in front of you. The very air around you is thick and still. If you could just push yourself a little further. The clicking keys and scattered papers make your very brain hurt. Checking your phone repeatedly as though someone is going to contact you at this ungodly hour, you finally succumb.  Practically throwing your books into your school bag you march back to room, toss your things aside and use the last drop of energy you have to climb into your bed.