I took another run at it today and here’s where we are:

Six Years of Dreaming
(The average person will spend six years dreaming over the course of his or her lifetime)

Sleep is a timid, undemanding lover who thinks
I am frigid and unyielding. Say it, then.
Or just take me
goddam you.

Habit, on the other hand, finds me quite pliable.
I cannot refuse him. He comes with wine
and music, leisure and temptations
mundane, predictable and irresistible.
I tell him I am tired of him
He cannot get enough of me.

I yearn for a new way
and new light, but the confusion – how
does light fit in to a life
that lives so intensely in the dark?

I wish myself somehow different
– maybe more given to rebellion
maybe less. Whatever I need
to break up
with my secrets.
I am not given
to rebellion as I once was
and so it may be hopeless.
I have spent so much longer
on dreams
than I should have done already,
staying awake for bad dreams
and shoving aside good dreams
for habit. I am
a mess.

Sleep has come to do an intervention
bringing with him
common sense, conventional wisdom
intuition … history. All the self-righteous
and smug know-it-alls.
Naturally, I am repulsed.

Dreams – my children, some I have borne
of gentle sleep and some of rough habit.
It is impossible to tell the legitimate issue
from the bastards because I cannot recall
which suitor I gave solemn promises.