aruvi ravana

sleep: an answer to the absurd

sleep has long lost its synonymity
with “rest,” “reprieve,” the “circadian rhythm,”
et cetera, et cetera

sleep, now, is a technique, most of all,
a mechanism of survival—
of another day/night

sleep, then, is a suspension—
an enforced space of nothingness
albeit filled by the inevitable dread
of dreams, aka nightmares

sleep is a space still,
its ephemerality notwithstanding—
a passive oblivion, an amnesic void

sleep is one way
of how we answer the absurd
knowing well that
sleep is as evasive as life itself

so, sleep, now means
the reluctant popping of pills
and a literal “fall of hope”—
for the trick to work

and if and when it does,
when the suspension is instituted
by a careful, yet callous, design,
we survive yet another day/night

sleep, then, is the culmination
of coping mechanisms hitherto
self-taught & deployed—
for survival

so we may move on and show up
like nothing ever happened
while our insides slowly give up
night after medicated night

all for a few more years of revolution—
until all else is exhausted
we seek this death called sleep,
in its slowness, to stay alive

isn’t sleep—like care—
then, my love, our revolution
or our preparation for it?

inquilab,
a.r.