I took a sleeping pill at 10 since I could feel the disparity between my physical, mental and emotional exhaustion and wanted to head it off at the pass. I want to sleep - my eyelids are heavy, my fingers aren’t as quick or accurate on the keyboard - and I am tired. On an emotional level, I desperately want the respite of sleep.

But my brain just won’t shut off. I’m not even worrying about big things that usually keep me awake - finances, my weight, my future, etc. - but little things that, while important, shouldn’t be keeping me awake and on the verge of tears.

I’ve got lines of poetry running around in my head and I’m too damn tired to pick up a pen and my eyes are too tired to handle turning on a light and jotting them down in a notebook. I can’t type them… that’s just not how the process works for me. I need to handwrite them first and then I edit and rearrange when I type or have an almost finished poem in my mind. There are phrases and ideas… and those ideas are linking to memories and thoughts that are making me want to cry.

And I just want to shut it all off and go to sleep. That’s it. A simple request, and not at all greedy or unreasonable. I took the pill close to two hours ago and I just have heavy eyes and a dizzy head, but I don’t feel any closer to sleep. So I’m sitting here and typing. When I can no longer hold up my head, I will try to get to my bed and maneuver my heavy head to the pillow.

I’m listening to Albinoni’s Adagio for Strings and Organ. It’s part of my sleep-inducing playlist, but right now it’s just striking me as terribly melodramatic and something that would serve well as a soundtrack in a movie featuring a pale, frail heiress in Victorian England upon hearing that her fiance perished at sea, or some shit.

I am so messed up in the head. Really.

My head is getting heavier and my fingers are beginning to feel like sausages. Perhaps now is a good time to attempt slumber.