Four Steps To Sleep

The sun cuts in through blinds
fingers of light brushing bare shoulders
Four steps, and daybreak is snuffed out,
curtains drawn

Four steps and wrinkled sheets immerse the body in medicinal comforts
Delicate tools work at the corners of her mind
Bolts tumble to the pillow,
as eyelids hesitantly pull downward

Four stages to sleep
Ill-conceived realities pump out the whirling black goop
Heavy thoughts perch on the night stand
They await a break in the spell,
a snap of consciousness
 

She awaits the edge of this floor of clouds
Four steps to the edge of a white washed cliff
 

Four hundred years of slipping weightlessly
She passes the stars and their ships
She passes the balloons devoid of careless keepers
Four hundred years of toppling through the cracked mind,
but only four hours of sleep to spare her
 

The curtains give out with the impact of crushing thoughts
and the piercing light bleeds in
Thoughts reconverge,
the bolts tightened by four steps to the window sill