In Order To Get Back To Sleep

I may have no choice
but to lie to my skin
and try to convince it that
the million flinches and itches
it is feeling are not reflective
of a restlessness within,

but are the marks of small assaults
from outside the perimeter. I will say,

we are under attack
by everything.

This will work,
I think, if I can keep my skin
from looking into my eyes.
My eyes won’t ever back me up.

I refuse to be daunted by this.
Lying to my skin, closing my eyes,
I’m going to beat this —

allowing the forces colliding among my organs
to roam and smash me awake again and again,
all the while pretending peace reigns there

while the black night closes in and seeks weakness,
breaches, the stray mutinous hair that will fall from me
leaving one follicle open to a manufactured danger
on which I can blame everything.