I Want To Sleep

I want to sleep.

God knows I do. I want to close my eyes and slip into that heavy, comforting darkness where the world fades away, where I don’t have to think, where I don’t have to be awake to my own existence. I want the kind of sleep that pulls me under like an ocean tide, drowning me in rest, letting me forget for a while that I am exhausted beyond words.

But I can’t.

Sleep teases me. It flirts with my body, making my limbs heavy, my eyelids droop, my breathing slow. And just when I think I am about to sink into it, just when I think tonight will be different, something pulls me back. A thought, a whisper of anxiety, a lingering ache that refuses to quiet down. And then I am awake again, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of another sleepless night pressing down on me.

It’s been like this for as long as I can remember. Some nights are better than others, but most are the same—restless tossing, watching the hours pass, feeling my body beg for rest while my mind refuses to cooperate. And when I do sleep, it’s never enough. Three hours, sometimes four, and then I’m up again, staring at the darkened room, feeling the exhaustion settle deep in my bones.

I try. God, I try. I dim the lights, I keep my room cold, I avoid my phone. I count my breaths, I count imaginary sheep, I count the number of nights I have gone without real rest. I take the pills, the ones that are supposed to make sleep come easy, but they only give me a few hours at best. And even then, the sleep they bring is not the kind that heals. It’s artificial, forced, like being dragged under instead of drifting away.

I hate the pills. I hate the way they make my body feel sluggish, the way they leave a bitter taste in my mouth, the way they remind me that I need something to do something as natural as sleeping. But I take them anyway, because without them, I am nothing but a ghost of myself—floating through the day, barely present, barely alive.

People don’t understand. They tell me to just close my eyes, to relax, to stop overthinking. As if it’s that simple. As if I haven’t tried every trick, every method, every desperate attempt to coax my body into sleep. They don’t understand what it feels like to be this tired, to feel the exhaustion pressing against your skull, weighing down your chest, making every movement feel like wading through water.

It’s not just tiredness. It’s something deeper. It’s a kind of exhaustion that makes my soul ache. It’s the kind of exhaustion that makes me question how much longer I can keep doing this. How many more days I can drag myself through, how many more nights I can spend staring at the ceiling, willing my body to just let go.

I miss sleep. I miss the feeling of waking up rested, of stretching my arms and feeling light instead of heavy. I miss dreaming—real dreams, not the hazy, fragmented ones that come from drugged sleep. I miss the comfort of slipping between the sheets and knowing that in a few moments, I will be gone, untethered from the world, free for just a little while.

But sleep does not come for me. It stands at a distance, watching me, taunting me, always just out of reach. And so I lie here, night after night, waiting for something that never arrives.

I want to sleep. I need to sleep. But more than anything, I just want to know what it feels like to be rested again. To be whole again. To wake up and not feel like I am drowning in my own exhaustion.

Maybe one day, sleep will find me. Maybe one day, I will close my eyes and wake up to the sun without feeling like my body is made of lead. Maybe one day, the night will not feel like an endless battle, and I will not have to fight so hard for something that should come so easily.

But tonight is not that night.

Tonight, I will lie awake again, listening to the silence, counting the hours, waiting for a sleep that will never come.

Neta