Bed Time

My eyes ache
like dirty blankets,
smothering my face
with gently hung
scratching and wavering
surges of hush.

I am rolled
into a drifting sleep
in the soiled bed
of my dirty clothes;
upright, my mattress
is firm as a gravestone
giving the posture
of a tax man.

I feign life
in the flashing tumbles
of consciousness,
strobing between periods of
teased dreams and descending
stillness.

I rub the roughness red
into my sclera,
hoping to flip
the draining pillow
of the moment to its
shocking cold underneath.

It is no use,
I admit to myself
that I am
slumber-fodder
and drift nobly on,
defeated.