In the middle of the night I woke as I often do lately and as I lay still in bed, wondering why I can’t sleep through the night, a poem fully formed, a thing of beauty came to me all at once. It made me glad to be awake to experience this moment of unvarnished inspiration. Of course I said I’d remember, don’t we always do that, say it will still be there when we wake for the day, when we reach for a notepad, a receipt, any scrap of something to jot it down? Ha! This is the one thing you can count on, it will be gone in the morning, vanished as though it never existed.
You will try to summon it, call it back so you can write it down and share it with everyone else because it is the truest thing you had ever known and witnessed by the dull glow of the bedside clock. It was alive and full of beauty and breathe and the last thing anyone will ever have to read to know what insomnia really is. But it is only your experience, witnessed by one person, you, in the middle of a vacant night. Gone.
MC
I Am Writing 