Forever ago was the time when a sleepless night was an opportunity to thrust good deep into the awaiting warm, moist crevice of a cruel world; not long enough ago, a sleepless night was when the biting cold night sky visited and gnawed, for no man sleeps peacefully amongst vagrants; tonight sleep is restlessness, the uneasiness security offers those who yearn to be free while constructing their cage from within. Without sleep, the whispers of insanity are carried by a strong wind to the welcoming embrace of confusion.

Tonight I do not sleep, but I am not interested in the world around either. I stare, looking for the darkness above to swallow me whole in one quick bite. The woman at my side breathes in the rest of her security so peacefully, but the calmness she shares is frightening. My thoughts follow her breath and ask why she gives me a sense of peace when I am with her and at what cost is this peace offered. Yet the calmness of her breath and the connection we have makes me feel this is where I belong, which make me think it is time to run into the unknown, welcoming arms of freedom. Sleep...please.

Thinking of the times when she has robbed me of all energy by draining every last drop of desire, I can smile and take her into the dimension of my mind — an alternate universe. I know this is not the fuel that keeps my occasionally throbbing passion for her burning, but it is the heat and I understand such desire. Love is such an absurd concept, a corruption of our ability to think, that I cannot accept its weighty imposition...even if in all of its recklessness it were the truth.

Perhaps I cannot sleep because I am ill... Yes, I am not of sound mind. The flu, perhaps. Sleep... I turn my head in the absolute darkness and look at what I cannot see, a woman I can hear breathe, and allow myself the absurd comfort of knowing her loving beauty is at my side.