Insomnia

I am an insomniac by airplane;
I cannot sleep resting upon myself,
and the constant whir of engines through smooth air
calls my attention in a way
that tires on pebbled highway do not.
The vague discomfort of the static charge
of the stagnant blood that swells my feet
is inescapable, trapped as I am
by woven blue restraints and walls of gray plastic armrests.
My eyes feel like too much of something—
light, water, time?—
have seeped into them;
they are crusty and numbed
by the manufactured air and half-light
so that there is no relief in keeping them
open nor closed.
It reminds me of muted 2am conversations
lying in dorm hallways under bright fluorescent ceilings—
those conversations that don’t ever end because
sleepiness disappears into the light ache of weariness
and over-blinked eyes,
and our unfiltered tongues wander into the spaces of ourselves
that are shuttered, or maybe
just aren’t as important when the sun is shining.
Time passes oddly for me
in the darkness lit by no smoking signs
and dawn already seeping through cracks in the plastic.
I’m never sure if the time passes in fitful naps
or if my mind is so blank that I can wander and muse
for minutes on end that so quickly accumulate into hours,
for I never feel rest nor awakening.
My mind just won’t shut off, and I turn back to you
in the row behind and across the aisle
(why are you not next to me?),
because roaming through all or nothing needs a companion.
You are asleep already,
head laid on shoulder as I can never achieve comfortably
except in lecture halls,
adorable covered up to your shoulders in cheap soft airline blanket
with your glasses still on.
When you stir in the morning
to accept your tray of stretchy danish and diluted orange juice,
I will greet you with a wide smile
and three-four-five-am still clinging like a film to my face
and many miles paced between doors that we could’ve opened.
For now, I turn back to hazy wanderings
as I phase in and out of consciousness
and settle into the barely-noticeable buzz of immobility.