Hello Darkness...

Thief, you've taken all I had.

My sleep, my sanity, my tears.

All of it you've gathered in your glass jar.

Child I was, I laid every night, paralyzed in fear of your claws.

Every morning: "Sweetheart, why are you tired?" "Daughter did you sleep last night?"

I was too young for the circles under my eyes, yet even my youth you stole.

Thief.

Yet the darkness, the utter nothingness, was not enough.

You began your whisperings, sending them into my ears and keeping my eyes wide with terror.

Thief.

Music soothed me; I would drift to sleep on the notes, my mind filled with lyrics.

Even then, I would burst into wakefulness, gasping for breath, suffocated by your hand on my throat.

Thief.

You have made sleep a horror for me.

Nightmares no longer haunt me, darkness no longer suffocates me, but still you steal sleep from my eyes and you feast upon what is mine.

My fear has numbed and you have fallen silent.

Thief, you no longer need to terrorize me for your meal.

I feed my sleep to you willingly, lying awake and memorizing the grooves on my ceiling, to keep you at bay.

Thief, you've imbued the beauty of rest with a hatred for stillness.

Thief, this will not stand.

Thief, I will have my revenge.

Thief, be gone from my sleepless eyes.

Thief, let me rest once more.