Bedtime Poetry

A poem on idiopathic hypersomnia

I've always been disabled

Without knowing it

Sleeping my

day away

thinking that

it was normal

when it wasn't

hoping that

one day my

sleep would stop

hindering me from BEING

n o r m a l

What was going through my mind writing it

I wrote this poem the summer of 2023, specifically around July. I had graduated college in December 2023 and was back living with my grandmother until I saved enough to move out. I was job searching for around 7 months since graduating in December 2023. Which made me feel disappointed in myself for not being able to get a single job with my degree.

I also remember the other emotions that bubbled up to the surface while writing this poem; anger, anxiety, tiredness. I had done everything that my family was telling me was “right” to succeed in life: got my degree, worked multiple jobs for experience, etc. But I was feeling like I was just existing day by day and not living. Additionally, it didn't help that I was also back living with my family after using college as an escape from them. I was back where I started with no obvious way forward.

Wanting to feel normal

For this reason, that poem reflects on my idiopathic hypersomnia (IH) causing me to sleep my day away. I wrote this poem reflecting about my naive younger self. Back then, younger me thought it was normal to sleep most of the day away, and I relished being able to sleep easily compared to my peers. The second half of the poem is a nod toward today. Me waking up and hoping that one day I'll be closer to society's “normal,” and that my IH will stop hindering me.

Usually, I battle a lot with feeling like I sleep my life away and wanting to be society's “normal” or at least functioning at “normal.” The poem is purposely shaped like a bed for this reason, as sleep is seeped into every part of my life and how it affects me, so it felt right for this to be formatted into a bed.

A second poem

I crawl into bed with my lover

She is the darkness

She is the covers

The bed

She wraps around me

Before I know it I'm

Asleep

Dreaming

Multitudes that those who can see me

can't see

Another take on having IH

The second poem I wrote a few hours after the first one. I was having an insomnia night and couldn't sleep, so I decided to keep writing out my feelings. As a writer, when I'm feeling hurt or upset I write out poems about what I am feeling. It's cathartic to jot out my rough feelings in verse, as like a creative form of diary writing. Sometimes I do go back and do a bit of editing to make them flow better or I leave them as is, messy and crumpled around the edges. These 2 poems I have not cleaned up, since I thought they were fine as is.

Similarly, the second poem is another take on having IH. I have always loved naps and sleeping even before being diagnosed. This isn't to say that I haven't had moments where I hated sleep and didn't want to go to bed. So, I wrote this poem a bit darker than the first. The bed, the sheets and the darkness being my lover, trapping me into sleeping with her. The last three lines, "Dreaming/Multitudes that those who can see me/can't see" is a nod to the fact that my vivid dreaming and other IH symptoms go unseen even by those close to me. I am seen, but not seen as how I feel.

Anyone else in the community write poetry?