Now I really am going to go to bed.

I am so very, very awake
Sleeping in so late
Was a colossal mistake.
So I ponder to myself
Is everyone else awake?
Is everyone else awake like me?

Of course - the children are sleeping.
So many of them
Are tucked up in bed
Pillows caressing their small, weary heads
As they dream of seamless worlds
That make sense only to them
Circuses accumulating their favourite things
Brought to life, and animated especially for them
An empty theatre splattered with copy pasted images.
Boys playing football with David Beckham
Girls adorned in lace, pink satin and tied up in bows
But that’s just shameless stereotyping.
They dream of livid, enraged monsters, that the Disney animators
Could only dream of inventing
Their subconscious is a goldmine and they never knew
And when they grow up and are slammed up against desks
And call centres, and counters, and tills
They will never know that for one night in their lives
They created visionary masterpieces, that could’ve earned them
Millions.
Compressed joy slapping their lips viciously
Smiles widening, as their eyelids flicker
Never knowing.

Whilst there are couples undressing each other
Hungry, and ravenous, yet clumsy, knocking over unknowingly priceless items
That could’ve earned them millions.
For a few moments of unbridled passion
It’s okay when this sort of demeanour is happening in pornography
But in real life, slamming up against that wall just hurts.
But the couples continue regardless…all bruised and pink and nude
The gentleman tearing off the lady’s disappointingly cotton underwear
“What? It’s a laundry day.”

And cats squeezed up in tight fleecy circles
As only cats can.
Dreaming of chasing mice…
But that’s just shameless stereotyping.

The children are sleeping

Middle aged men and women of the ‘depressed’ sort -
Stapled to their settees smeared with tears
And nasal secretions because they’ve had a truly awful day
An awful day which makes them think that all days are this terrible
That their lives are terrible. Every laugh they ever had
Was meaningless, because they aren’t laughing now
Every ringing titter
Has been deleted, life’s a giant backspace button
On a computer keyboard to them.
But to them, a computer keyboard is a way of finding more pornography
And it makes them feel a little better.
Forty year old divorcees browsing vibrators on the Ann Summers website
The same expression will grace their faces
When they find a 2 for 1 offer at Sainsbury’s the following day.

A teenage girl with a terrible cold can’t sleep
Congealed pieces of nasal secretions escaping her
On to her pillow, and her long curled follicles
Reminding her of how very ill she is
Cemented to her bedclothes, hoping and praying
That the mucus will thicken and clog up her nose
To such a gloriously relieving extent where she cannot breathe anymore
And can just die, and not have to tell the handsome boy called Paul
From Science on Tuesdays’ and Wednesdays’,
That she really really likes him.
But that’s just mindless stereotyping.
But she really does quite like him.
She wonders if Paul will go to her funeral if she died.
She wonders if he’ll look devastatingly attractive in a fitted black suit.
She sniffs, and four miles worth of congealed nasal secretion shoots upwards

The children are sleeping.

The cats have now moved on to chasing other small animals
Inferior to themselves, as they hunt, hungry and ravenous
Yet clumsy, knocking over priceless items.

One young child in particular has just slain a dragon.
Hopefully - she is still dreaming.

The animators’ of Disney’s next film feature
Are awake too, trying to keep to their schedule
By stealing old footage from The Jungle Book
And using the same animation on vaguely different characters
And slightly altered plotlines
“The kids will never notice, we’re just so tired”
“We’re so tired”

Couples heads respectively slam against their pillows
Engulfing themselves in weary light headedness
From the past hour of rampant thrusting
Hoping the head banging hadn’t woken up the other residents
“The kids will never notice, we’re just so tired.”
‘We’re so tired’.

The children are sleeping

The ‘depressed sorts’ scatter their fictional personalities
Over various chatrooms - not pausing to stop
And realise how tired, they all really are
And their idle banter, and frantic typing is their caffeine
Building up in their blood streams, as they seek
Plastic friendship over and over
Envisaging the perfect versions of themselves, and telling
Other fictitious people about their fictitious lives
And slightly altered plotlines.
The lies are stimulating them, surging through their skin
Like teenagers again, energised and wired


I am just so tired now.
So tired.
Why am I not sleeping?
The children are sleeping