Sleep Issues

Everything seems to be about issues these days, Bush. So I'm calling this piece "Sleep Issues." I think you'll understand. Here we go:

Sleep Issues

I wait for sleep.
It will not come.
The mind's awake. No,
not the mind. Make that
the brain. The mind
capitulates to the brain,
it's the brain that rejects sleep.
It goes to work obsessively
on tomorrow. What needs
to be done. And not content
with each small detail, done
once over, it goes back
rehearsing each one separately
over and over, even knowing
that each plan that it makes
will turn out differently.
Not the mind, the brain works
overtime, counting time. It works
back, calculating hours
of sleep. Four-fifty, three, two,
one. Bed at eleven-thirty,
that makes, what...? Five,
five-and-a-half hours, max.
Not enough, the brain decides,
while militating against more.
Meanwhile, the mind struggles
to regain ascendancy. Struggles
to bring the breathing body back
into the equation. Struggles
to relax. An irony, then.
And minutes, count them, slip by
mindlessly, whilst hours drag out,
interminable. Ah, "to sleep,"
said Hamlet. And "perchance
to dream." I breathe, I breathe.
I count the breaths. And wait.
For sleep.