dark

she looks at me with bloodshot eyes, dark circles, disheveled hair crooked teeth, because she doesn’t sleep enough for a night time retainer to do its job. and she asks me why am i like this i don’t know what to say because that is the very question i have asked for the last year   it is dark and alone and we need each other to keep ourselves sane outside it is black. the only light comes from a flickering street lamp, and the only sound from the hum of generators   she looks at her hands, and they are almost as dark as the night with smudges of ink from the paper she hasn’t been writing, the gray from the print of the textbook she hasn’t been reading   it is not until eleven that she can focus when all of the lights have been silenced and there is only a fluorescent lamp to taunt her you need me it is not until there are four hours left and she’s sweating nerves and caffeine and prescription speed and her computer clock stares at her and laughs   ADHD is four letters, but so is lazy and so is fear   i can’t do this i can’t she is scared of putting pen to paper, wrestling with the thoughts in her head trying to make sense of ideas of a mind that has not rested for 27 hours scared that she might slip up and reveal her biggest secret, that she doesn’t understand the essay question or the even the header of page 675 (or maybe anything)   and she is scared of letting herself stop thinking because then she might feel scared to turn the light off because then she might have to see herself and stories of today of yesterday of tomorrow will scream until she can hear nothing else will surround her, trap her and although she is tired, exhausted she will not fall for the lure of sleep will not let herself be the raccoon in the trap   she asks why she is like this, but she doesn’t really want to know because she is like this because she runs from herself, would go weeks without sleep if it meant she could be too tired to really be awake   finally, she finishes the essay. it is three a.m. and i am allowed to go to bed i say good night and step away from the mirror