In the early hours.

Hush your chatter, young lady. You find yourself here sometimes, and admit it, you kinda enjoy it. These random occasional nights bring you back to those months of insomnia and midnight conversations.
The weight of heavy weariness pressing against your forehead. the restless shivers travelling along your fingers and legs. The pain behind your eyelids with every slow blink. The way your bed's soft comfortable folds feel like a prison. The way you can't avoid watching the slow sliding of minutes from one to the next. So slow.
The thoughts that run in dizzying circles round and round in your head. Memory after worry after wish after sorrow after memory. A flashing merry-go-round with music that repeats itself over and over, refusing to give you any rest.
Your body and head are heavy with desire for sleep.
All of this you recognize. Like an old friend. There is some strange comfort in it's familiarity. You recognise how you'd be if you allowed yourself. Up in the early hours, ink on your fingers or paint under you nails, obsessive in your desire to escape the throbbing, unavoidable irritation of inability to sleep. Or pacing the floors of the silent, cold house, listening to every creak, alert to every sound. But that habit is one too easy to slip into.
Oh, stop this inane chatter. God give me rest.

On vigil.

They are still awake. Twenty six beds in two neat rows. Most filled, most asleep, some still rustling, some still moving. Their voices have only just calmed - what is it about these impish little minds that they can't understand the notion of "quiet brings sleep"? They rummage and sigh and complain. It's the heat, it's the noise, it's the people. It's everything and everyone but themselves. One of them rolls over in her sleep and I envy her, that she is able to rest and dream and recharge.
I stalk the dorm on soft feet and swing my head towards any noise made as if I can silence it with a look. And sometimes I can. They don't like my presence; it forces them to lay still and keep quiet. Tomorrow I will talk to them, these restless little girls. Tomorrow my tiredness will voice itself and tomorrow night... I hope for sleep.
I hear them breathing and this time no voice breaks the gentle rhythm. Maybe finally they are at rest. Their sleeping heads are taking them where I, right now, wish I was. And as they sink deeper into their dreams I sit here and record my thoughts.
I am the last one awake. Which means I am the last one to sleep.

Sleep.

I had a minimal amount of sleep last night. It makes things strange. It wasn't like I wasn't trying to sleep, okay so admittedly I gave up for a while at about twelve, and then again at about one, but sometimes there's nothing else you can do. Your thoughts start to wonder and it's at those times when I often feel I need to do something with my time. Otherwise I start to think too much. And I no longer have anyone to tell me to stop.
It's a habit one gets into, you know?

I see the strangest people while about my daily life. Particularly while in town. The other day I went past two men and a woman dressed in Steam Punk. This was the first time I had seen Steam Punk in reality and I ended up twisting right round in my seat on the bus to get a better look. The first man was wearing a long, gothic-type velvet coat that was a burnt orangy-copper colour and a top hat that matched. The top hat had what looked like brass goggles settled on top, and he had long blonde hair tied back in a pony tail. He was big. His wedged, buckled boots slammed down onto the pavement with each swinging stride, so that he looked like he was about to take off. The woman was wearing a rather unflattering outfit. She was thin and tall. She had on a skirt that flared just below the knees with little waves of black lace that fluttered above her black DrMartin boots. Her coat came down to just below her backside and was fitted at the waist. She had her dark hair up in a tight bun with a brass pin. But when she turned round slightly I saw a flounce of cream shirt and red tie curving between the lapels of her coat. The second guy was wearing a suit - pinstriped waistcoat and white shirt, tailcoat and black trousers with big black boots. He had long brown wavy hair, that fell to just below his shoulders, and a pair of glasses.
Epic moment. I wish I had had a camera and the chance to leap off the bus and the courage to ask them for a photo.

My typing and thinking tends to float softly out the window when I'm tired. It's a strange kind of tiredness. Unreal and constricting. At the same time, my adreneline supplies have kicked in, so my fingers are still fast, my reactions to people still evident. Just not always coherent.

I've tidied my room. A quick tidy, first thing in the morning, so that it's ready for the week start tomorrow. Also (though I would not admit this to my mother as yet) to make way for the blanket fort I am planning on making in my room. All over my room...

I'm still waiting for that release that comes once a month. Come on, femininity! Stop making things so hard. You know, before last night I've been considering hibernation. However, my body has just proved to me the impossibility of this for humans. It's a shame, as this could save me alot of bother and stress. Imagine being able to just send out an all-inclusive email - sorry, can't come out/to college or talk/write essays. I'm hibernating.

I need sleep. And some inspiration.