Sleep is also a form of death.

There're nights 

My sleep hangs on a pendulum

Swaying between flashes 

Of consciousness and

Deep nothingness

Is this what death feels like?

The chasm of singularity between heaven and earth?

(Or is it hell, in my case?)

Stories, I have heard.

Gore and grotesque.

Depending on the mouth and mind

it originated, and the name of God.

There's been nights, 

When I feel weightless and numb

Floating above my bed; my legs,

Too restless to be tamed by

the warmth of my comforter.

Sometimes, jerking awake from 

a fall from a great height.

Shaking in the sudden vulnerability 

Longing for the warmth of an embrace

To keep me from my nightmares. 

There are nights I wish 

A cease from existence.

Like wiping away chalk marks from a blackboard; neat and painless.

Drained of all desire and hope

Nursing the only thing that's alive:

the gaping hollow in my heart

And there are nights 

I see Van Gogh's starry night,

Outside my window

Fireballs and thunder

End of the world as I dreamt it.

The moment has come when no apology will

Be accepted 

I prepare to die

Owning up my sins weighing on my left shoulder 

I fall as the floor of my bedroom crumbles

An eternal peace covering me like a down.

  

'The Saint' by Odilon Redon.