Sleep that doesn’t feel like rest

Still and straight I lie, begging sleep to drag me into its depths. I have school tomorrow, I tell myself, I pressure myself. But that doesn’t stop the previously trickling thoughts from rushing like an open dam.

I glance over at my alarm as they clamber over each other like reporters, each demanding attention at maximum volume, except that they all had the same maximum volume. And underlying all that noise is a song I listened to before going to bed, which is steadily growing irritating.

The sight of the books by my bedside tire me further; it has gone past the point where reading would quiet it down, and tire the steady and endless production of thoughts. I try to end it by ignoring them, but there is nothing to distract myself with other than the steady gush of thoughts in my head.

I look out the window at the light polluted sky, and find it fuller of substance than of stars. Even the stars won’t humour me tonight, as the throbbing forces me to shut my eyes and turn my attention back. I beg thee, I half joke, to let me slumber in peace.

Squinting through the bluriness of my eyes, I calculate the time left before sleep will stop me from wallowing in self-pity. The emotional and mental exhaustion stack upon the physical exhaustion of the day as they mercilessly crush me under a wheel of emotions.

Within the first hour of the next day, I am dragged into slumber; the alarm that pierces my eardrums remind me that I did, after all, fall asleep.