Love Affair

I love sleep.

I love the depth of it, the nothingness and simultaneous, uncontrollable mental activity. Don’t get me wrong – I get a lot of mental activity when I’m awake (some of that uncontrollable too), but most of that lot is torture of my own devise.

So back to sleep. And how I love it.

I love restful sleep, sleep that does its job, sleep that makes you feel replenished. Get up in the morning after a night of that and you almost don’t need a cup (or two) of coffee. Almost.

Lazy sleep also has a place in my heart, that slumber you come in and out of like a revolving door between sleep and wakefulness. This is the sleep that lingers, that welcomes you back as soon as you bat your eye lashes at it even half-heartedly. It’s a flirt, this sleep, easily coaxing you back into a comfortable embrace of down and high thread count sheets that relieves you of all responsibility and care other than REM. It’s stay in bed all day sleep, cocooning you in a womb of innocent repose.

The fact that this love is, of late, unrequited, breaks my heart.

I lay awake, night in, night out, lids heavy with expectation… but sleep rarely comes. Vulnerable I wait, ready to give myself over, asking sleep to overcome me, welcoming the opportunity to stop thinking and just float into the void. I'm not even asking for the romance anymore -- I'll take what I can get.

So have your way with me sleep. Make me your bitch.