what keeps her up at night

The moonlight was crawling its way through the open cracks in her blinds, barely reflecting off her white walls. She laid there, eyes firmly closed. Her sighs bounced around the room, from one wall to another. It was one of those nights again, the ones that keep you up for hours on end. Her pacing could no longer be heard as she fell deeper into her bed, embracing the softness against her skin. Even what seemed like remedies were no use. The smell of lavender, the poetry on her shelves, the movies she swore by. Even those couldn't guide her to surrendering to sleep.

It was the same story every once in a while, the same thoughts polluting her mind. Perhaps the combination of nothingness with everything was a disaster in itself. The type of disaster that freezes time and leaves you bare. Lately, her life was a sum of those nights. The ones spent alone in a dark room, under cold sheets. The one's leaving her stripped of any complex emotional outcomes. It's almost too dark to say aloud, too dark to admit to. Perhaps aren't we all like that? Aren't we all the product of our unconscious? The product of our sleepless nights. She had wished, time and time again, they'd disappear, but nothing simply disappears. It eventually rises and fills us up once again.

So she embraced them, one at a time. She travelled through each thought, each fear. Every hour that passed she thought those thoughts. Perhaps that was the solution, to think until the end of all the thinking. Eventually, it got darker outside. The moonlight was stronger than ever. She sighed, deeper this time, as a yawn crept its way to her weak smile. The relief arriving in waves, travelling through her veins as she closed her eyes. This was the end of thinking, at least just for this night.