What Keeps Me Awake

"What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?"

- Kahil Gibran

My thoughts on a Feeling of Unrest:

The feeling of unrest creeps up on you, as it did to me tonight as I watched the night’s sky out of the car window. You’re thinking of nothing in particular, the days conversations and events float in and out of your thoughts not settling entirely. So it takes you unawares, until you notice that that feeling in the back of your throat wasn’t there a minute ago. And then it’s no longer limited to your throat, but it spreads, seeps, throughout your body, burrowing into your stomach, blurring your thoughts, suddenly making you shiver in uneasiness. You try to pinpoint its origins, but you never can. All you know is that you want to do something that makes you feel alive again. It makes you want to put on your shoes and go out into the night and run until your legs give way underneath you and your body is burning for oxygen. Or find the nearest person who can lend a sympathetic ear and closed mouth and confide in them confessions you can’t afford to impart on those such words concern. It makes you want to feel alive, feel that you have yet to be totally lost to the world at large, if just for one moment.

The feeling of unrest. It gets under your skin and makes you crazier than a full moon. It makes you reconsider the impossible, perhaps foolish, most likely unreasonable stints and then goes ahead and gives you just enough guts to go through with it. It brings you down to its level and has the audacity to dare you to take just another step down towards unforgiving freedom of care. Yet how can you resist such whispers when, in hushed caressing tones, they promise you the world? All you have to do is be brash and light that fire behind your eyes. All you have to do is forget about falling, about the crash and burn, and focus on how the exhilarating flight catches your breath and makes your heart race. Just do it, do it now before this bright burst of courage dissipates in the morning light. Do it before the drug of reality settles back down upon your mind, momentarily stifling the urge to know what it feels like to jump into the deceptively motionless black water and feel the water roll across your skin. Just do it.

But you don’t. Nine point nine times out of ten, the intoxicating blind courage offered isn’t strong enough to overcome the overwhelming sensibility of most minds. It’s been diluted once too often and you’re unsure if you even want to learn how to restore it. So a bit embarrassed, you keep these wild thoughts to yourself and give yourself a pat on the back because this time you didn’t slip. Just wait though, wait for that strong brash unwonted courage to finally overcome you and watch how it burns so brightly, protecting you in your momentary insanity. Such fire, if given enough fuel and enough time, will consume you entirely. But oh, how those flames do entrance you even as they burn you to the ground.