You watch the number on the digital clock

gyrate a teasing dance that burns your eyes

and you can feel every second that ticks by

in the tightness of your skull and the

dryness of your eyes.

 

Your body screams at you

for not being able to do a perfect imitation

of a corpse but

 

Your brain is not catching the memo to slow down

Your, brain is not catching the memo to slow down the

Memo to slow down the

Me-mo, to slow down

Slow down

Slow down

Down

Down...

 

Lie the hell down and sleep!

 

Sleep 

Like that thing you do when the day has been

Kicking your butt from 7:00am to 3:00 am

That, thing you do when the sun goes down and

people stop imitating action cartoons and take on

the likeness of marionettes,

 

Dancing on the strings the Sandman has laced

through his fickle little fingers but your

strings have been cut...

 

And so you slump on the shelf of wakefulness,

watching those around you droop like sun-roasted daises,

closing their buds to the stars and opening to the morning air

but despite the position of the sun in the sky your

petals are wilting.

 

You stand parallel to a zombie and

no matter how much you tell yourself to just sleep,

no matter how many times you wrestle your body horizontal and

tug up the covers 

lid creaking closed on an old weathered casket

your eyes, remain open.

Your brain doesn't slow down

and you listen to the tittering echoes of the seconds tick by,

like anvils on your conscience,

weighing down your limbs and

your sense and your concentration,

 

The hands of time mounting an hour glass to your back

which you carry and never put down

simply listen to the whispers of the sand

that you are forbidden to touch.

 

Put down your hourglass, Night Walker.

Silence the seconds that pass

they cannot touch you;

your thoughts are infinite,

They cannot

be captured by tiny, pestering digits of time.

They cannot

be held down by ravenous numerals 

and the sun,

does not determine the stillness of your body so

 

Put down your hour glass night walker.

It isn't yours anymore.

 

Put down, the hour glass night walker,

and sleep.