Release

One Night

The breeze helps me to try and fall asleep tonight

but my thoughts are running too fast for my troubled mind

so I try to use my father's trick to force sleep like he does

"Stare up at the ceiling, Laila, just keep staring."

So I stare up at the ceiling for a while, waiting for my weary eyes to close

If I was five again, I'd go to my parent's bedroom

"Hey baba, can you sleep with me and my teddy?"

I never wanted mama to sleep with me, she slept with me every night of my life before that

So I guess I'll just try and fall asleep tonight

I'm too old to sleep with my parents

too old to sleep with my teddy bear

too young to go out late at night to a bar until I pass out drunk in the street

too young to fuck someone just to get some sleep

So I stare up at the ceiling until my eyes get to tired to stay open

and once that happens, I feel as if I might just get a dream

but I don't.

Instead, I get a nightmare

a great ball of nightmares

every person I've ever met

seems to be here

my family

my friends

your man, my man

that old, muttering, blind man

the little man

the big man

the 'ol wild west man

the yes-man

every person I've ever said hello to

do I even know you?

Every place I've ever been to, everything I've ever done

eating faloodeh in Iran

playing soccer in the streets of Mexico

building snowmen in Switzerland

visiting Chinatown in San Francisco

marveling at the water at the Persian Gulf

riding bareback in my mountains

lying on the grass in my backyard

watching my father get bucked off, getting bucked off myself

dehorning a calf (that memory makes me laugh)

but everything gets intertwined

so cleverly by my mind

so that there's a point in my dream

where everything turns sour

and I've lost my man

the old, muttering, blind man passes on

my faloodeh turns sour and I don't want to eat it anymore

we broke a window and got in trouble for it after playing soccer in the streets

my snowman melts, and so does yours

Chinatown turns deadly, when a masked gunman comes around

behind the Persian Gulf lies corruption

I get bucked off, bareback, and break my foot

there's a snake lying in the grass

raging horse named Cinnamon (though her coat was a dull gray) bucks me off

dehorning a calf meant getting kicked in the face

and things just don't go my way at night, do they?

Everything I ever loved, turns into everything I hate.

My sister no longer comes to me in my dreams

He comes around every now and then (but in nightmares too)

and my brain cells just don't like me, do they?

Always concocting a new poison for me to take

All I ask is for one night

where everything's alright

and you're alright

and I'm alright

laid here by your side

maybe we all sleep with a teddy bear all our lives

whether that'd be a pillow

or a person by our side

every night

rather than just one night.