Red-eyed dreams

The world turns slowly when you watch through the night, red eyes burning from too long staring at a screen, sleep gnawing the edges of consciousness, tattered after 24 hours like the edges of torn paper. The inky thoughts bleed out into a dark smudge and you lift hands to curl cramped fingers away from keys. You think to yourself that you can't use words like "illusive" and "beautiful" in a paper like the one you're writing, and a brief glimpse of the worn edges of journal pages draws you in with longing. Longing for the creative elegance of pen pushing down the fibers of real paper. The curls of letters jotted by hand. 

A short season of hard labor, and finally, the "send" button depresses under a tired pointer, and the light blinks out on a night of real sleep. But the voices of worry crowd into the weary head heavy on the pillow. Voices of failure, despair, criticism. What if that life's work, culminated in a tome of statistics and stark words...what if it's not what you think it is? What if they do tear it up?

The porch swings lulls away the worry, the night wind blowing the dusty yard clean, a twinkling planet winking good wishes. You find the pillow again, and this time, rest, as heavy as a winter quilt blankets mind and body. The synapses click as they shut themselves off for the night, like the computer winding down next to you in the dark.

Voices, when I listen to the voices
Every shroud of anger is sorrow in disguise
The voices, when I believe the voices
That convince me I am worthless,
bent on my demise


 Hear, oh hear the saints’ and angels’ voices


Everything about my weakness that is strong
Everything about the heart that could go wrong
Every hope that ever lived there but has since flown
I’m finding again, finding again


 We choose to love the things that hate us most

Here I fell on impoverished floor 

And came to rest beyond the reach of light 

Though the world would not think twice of me 

You searched for me in your own peculiar fight

 Father's wait for a long, lost child 

Scanning dawn and its bright horizons

 This is the world turning upside down 

When the light that was lost is found 

Come see the dawn with the darkness refused 

Today is yesterday made new

~from Eric Peters' Voices and Lost and Found*~

thoughts after sending in the dissertation,

as real life once again surrounds

*if you haven't discovered The Rabbit Room, head over to listen to all of Eric's songs from "Birds of Relocation" on the blog.