The Science of Sleep

I'm doing it again, I know it.

This time I'm so aware of it, of how bad I'm being, that it's making me sick.

It's like I have this secret sort of life. My real life and my pretend one. Except I know there are repercussions of my pretend one in my real life. If anyone knew the crimes I commit everything would fall apart.

I'm so afraid of being burnt. I'm so afraid of being caught. I'm so afraid of myself that it's making me sick.

My stomach hurts, I feel like I can't breathe. I can't seem to calibrate myself to my real life. As if I've forgotten which one is which.

I feel captured in my dreams and when I wake to find a cold reality, I'm breathing underwater. I feel the pressure amount around me, my body raises rebellion.

I'm so lost right now. I'm so lost.

In real life I've grown so distant and depressed that being caught in my dream world is easier. I don't want to be here. I don't want to feel these things.

I don't know if I'm running or I just want to.

I'm completely unaware of what's going on around me or what's going on inside of me. Nothing is making any sense.

I'm so scattered. I feel pulled and panicked. I feel caught. stuck. withdrawn.

Last night I had a dream I was dancing, I remember every step. For the first time for as long as I can remember I felt something inside of me that once defined me. I think it was beauty. I didn't care for anything. For anything outside of those movements. I wasn't lost for once, I found myself. Like something was coursing through me, from fingertip to fingertip, through my heart and every inch of me. It was like I was suddenly released from a vacuum and the air stopped crushing me. Like my heart was beating. Like my lungs were growing. Like everything inside of me was growing. growing. growing outwards. Like I wasn't trapped anymore.

I don't know what makes me feel more alive: my dreams or my actual life.
I don't know what makes me more afraid: my life or my dreams.

Which haunts me more?

Either way, I can't seem to exist only in one. I can't seem to find myself in either one. Sleeping or awake I feel dislodged. I feel I should be in some other sort of world. No matter where I am I feel lost.