4 am Vigil and the Depressed Mind

[DanaC]

4am Vigil and the Depressed Mind


4 am again. Four o clock vigil. Another day dawning, runs into morning and on into evening and back I am waiting for sleep...Tired and still thinking, keep thinking of nothing of worth. Just blind meanderings of selfish desires and fears of the future and all it might hold, or withdraw from my eyes, from my line of sight. If it's hidden I'l miss it, they'll keep it from me. If I keep thinking like this I'll sink like a stone and wont find my way to the surface again...take a breath....take another....fight the urge to flee there's nothing to flee from. Fight the urge to run there is nowhere to run to. Maybe I am hungry, if I eat I might sleep, or just settle. To thoughts less destructive and dark. Stark in the night time my eyes are wide open and watching for anything new.

Where did this fear come from? Why do I find it so hard to escape it? The terror that haunts my night times is vivid. The scars it leaves on my days still livid when my eyes are open and staring at shadows and no one knows why my eyes are so harrowed. Are you alright? They ask, Are you alright? Well maybe in the daytime but never at night. When did I let go of the hold that I had? I was travelling fast I knew where and I knew how.....When did I lose the path to the new? I was never this frightened before. I never lost touch before. Is this just how it is to be grown ? Is this what we own when we reach a great age? Is it never to cease ? is the end just the grave? how does anyone cope? How is anyone brave? In the face of such peril, and with no escape. How is anyone able to breathe? I should leave such questions to daylight hours, if I could turn off my mind I would turn off my thoughts and be silent inside. Maybe this is how the world looks through my eyes and that's well and good and how it should be. or maybe I am sick in the heart of me, sick at my core if I see such malaise. Am I crazed? Dazed by the speed of the passage of time? Time moving faster the further I go and it wont ever slow.... How does anybody grow? If growth takes them closer to death? Do they waste every breath by the journey they take? Why make it at all?

Is this how it is to be grown up and alone? This nagging yearning to go home. But home is a place I can no longer reach. It exists out of time, it has passed me by and left no trace.... except a brace, of memories to taunt me with their smell. I cannot quell this restless wandering. If I could just reach hard enough. Far enough. Want it enough... maybe. Maybe I could get there.

Birdsong and breezes blow through my window, flow through my room and lighten the air I can hear early risers and milkmen clinking bottles. The postman just came past and posted me a letter. Maybe it's a bill but maybe it's better than that, a surprise invitation or prize innovations to buy and forget. I'll get somewhere today. Today will be a good day. I'll see things differently and say it was the darkness talking. Stalking my nighttimes and leaving my days to themselves.