My most heroic self will always be intertwined with a shadow, 
I acknowledge, eyes heavy, backsliding into sleep, 
each new thought consuming the memory of the one before it. 
For how long can I stay awake trying to finish this idea?

What do you feel right now? 
It will only be this precise way once.
It’s been quite a day
(week, month, year, and life). 
Keep going, though, 
your curtain eyelids will end 
the show when it’s time, but, 
really, you’re already there; 
you’ve already won, 
here in this place, 
for this blink of an eye.

It really is a blink, isn’t it?
Even as I say that, the words echo 
and vanish in the dark. 
The ride will be over soon, 
onto another form,
another moment, 
plucked arbitrarily from
eternity and given the chance
to be, to flow in and out, 
getting better every moment, 
an opportunity at every turn…

(I fell asleep last night thinking something
along those lines and, sure enough, 
sleep’s tide washed away whatever
feelings of insight temporarily 
accompanied the words; 
but also sure enough, 
there will be more insight today. 
There is always more.

This morning I spoke with my sister and my niece, 
who showed me a drawing that she made when she woke up:
two houses, side by side, united in the middle by a plastic adhesive gem. 
She woke up and just had to draw, my sister said.

It really is that easy, isn’t it?)