The human body is a machine that won’t power down. I close my eyes, but I cannot sleep. Overthinking knots my thoughts into a noose—each loop a whisper of something I should have done, something I should have said. My chest feels heavy, my lower back aches, and it feels like something is stuck in my throat—grief, maybe, or just the weight of being awake too long.
I take a deep breath. Again. Again. But still, I can’t fall asleep.
In this sleepless night, I echo the ancient laments, my soul a desolate city, walls crumbled under the weight of unspoken sorrows. The book of lamentations is what I sought in the library of night.
In the solitude of night, melancholy wraps around me, a familiar shroud. I search for things to help me sleep, but my mind is a labyrinth of introspection and contemplation. Misery has characters, and I play them all: burned out, waking up with headaches every morning, falling asleep after eating, only to wake up choking on ghosts. My pain has a library, a scripture of suffering—seven hidden emanations, the hidden parchment of my soul, the chronicles of mystery.
I ask the search bar what the ending of Lost means, as if understanding fiction will help me go forward. As if knowing who the Roman goddess of love is will teach me how to love myself.
I miss the misery, Halestorm screams through my headphones. Nazareth hums somewhere in the dark. I think of Elliott Smith, and I am sad. But no pain, I whisper. No pain.
The weight of my body sinks into the mattress, the ache in my back humming like a hymn. I dream of Oizys, the Greek goddess of misery, her hands pressing my chest like an absolution. She does not take the sadness away, but she holds it, gently.
In this reverie, I find solace. Vulnerability becomes my strength, and catharsis washes over me. The angst and apathy dissolve, replaced by a yearning for serenity.
And in the quiet, I sleep.
- Oizys.