Sleep never comes easily,
When there's someone on your mind.
When their words are stuck on repeat,
And the memories caught on rewind.
And I'm falling,
Falling,
Falling,
Into a portal of denial,
A magnet tar pit of distraction,
The grave of a dreamer.

And I toss and turn,
Trying to shake out the You
That's left inside of me.
The You that's paper-clipped to
My heart,
And stapled to
My memory.
The You who has inked my speech,
And erased my erratic beliefs,
The You who has highlighted any of me at all.

And I wind my mind up,
And watch it run away,
Out of my grasp,
Our of my control.
But I keep chasing,
Chasing,
Chasing,
Searching for The Answer Key
In a library of wordless books.

I'm running away,
While you're fast asleep,
Dreaming as if there are no nightmares,
Smiling like there are no tears.
Content with this catastrophe,
Oblivious to my trauma.

And it's like there's an opaque layer
Into which your dreams can be seen.
But I don't have to see to know that
I don't exist there.

So I run,
Run,
Run,
Into the alleys of my dreams,
Trying to capture you,
Begging you to wait for me.
But I can't tell if I'm sleeping
Or if this is reality,
Because I've always ran
And I've always chased.
You've always left
And I've always followed.

Yet my subtle tears make for
Heavy rain,
And I carry onwards
In a darkness that doesn't turn back.
And I run atop a blackness,
For there are no roads,
There are no lights.
Just my tears falling down on me,
And the uncertainty of this never-ending trail.
I'm just supposed to trust your voice,
And follow the sound of your heartbeat.
But you eventually just dissolve into the darkness,
Like the monsters under the bed,
And the words from your lips
Are swallowed by the overwhelming silence.

Alone again.
Awake.
And alone.

So I lay my head down
At the foot of the bed,
Somewhere foreign,
Somewhere I've never been,
And I wait for sleep.

And I wait.

Then I'm running again,
But this time it's not toward you,
It's away,
And a girl appears,
Just like that,
Like she's been here all along.

Then I realize she has,
And I'm not in my own dream.
The sky lights up,
As does her angelic face,
And I long for a place where the sun doesn't shine.

So I Sharpie the sun,
And erase the fluffy, animated clouds
Until it's nothing but me,
Standing atop a blank canvas.

And I think,
Think,
Think,
Trying to link my thoughts to yours,
Trying to force you to remember.
And these thoughts shatter my heart
All over again,
But I keep thinking,
Until the memories appear behind me
Like a movie on a screen,
And I feel you feel it too.

The day that your memory of me,
Turns into bad dreams,
Maybe then I can
Get some sleep.