And just before I decided to start writing this, my internal voices had been debating about whether I had the energy to get up, wrap my mind around some thoughts, and jot them down on this virtual notepad.
As I type, I wonder if the "do" argument really won, or if I'm going to conk and zonk out soon, perhaps mid-sentence...
...but I continue for now.
While my mind's minds were having a back-and-forth about the future, the tips of the fingernails on my left hand were gently skimming my shin, attempting to soothe me to sleep. But, my eyes were wandering around the room--dark, except for a whitish-blue glow emanating from the virtual notepad vessel, my computer--and refusing to allow the rest of me to be lulled into the fourth and R.E.M phases.
And I saw and heard my thoughts bouncing in front of me, like the ball that guides a karaoke singer through her song. And they were set against a chorus of "let it be, let it be, let it be...forget about him...don't you shed a tear...memories will fade away," sung by Shooma and written by Ihsen Da Sole. It was inevitable that the song would become etched in my head, listening to it as many times as I have since receiving it.
As it repeated in my background, my brain churned away in the foreground. I stared at the hangings on my wall: the runner that Ropina had given me during my 2007 trip to Palestine, the bullet-ridden targets signed by my shooting-range crew, the prayers rugs that intersect and complement each other--I paused here, and thought about how I hadn't prayed maghrib or 3isha, and debated whether I should use my awake-ness to do so now, realizing all along that I wasn't going to: my love and appreciation for Allah has never wavered but my focus during the movements of salah sometimes does, and I knew I would not be able to focus now. But I continued to think about it, because of guilt.
I looked at the clock--only six minutes had passed since the last check, and I thought, "Akkh, ya Allah, four more hours to go."
Now, I was hearing the "thought I lost you, in the darkness, of a lonely night...never let you go" of Interstate's "I found you," and I thought, "I wish he could act like a Libra sometimes," and I debated whether I should use my awake-ness to log onto Facebook to see who else was not sleeping and whether they had notified me of something during the hours that I had been logged off.
"No, I don't want to be found right now."
With the base of my skull cushioned by my pillow, I tilted my head toward the back--my eyes reaching for the whitish-blue radiation of my computer screen, "That is why I had also not been logged into my instant messaging programs--I want to be lost and inaccessible."
I thought about how I was as dazed and confused as the players in that movie, which I had seen before the stroke of 12 and before the TV turned off...Matthew McConaughey's character "loved red heads." But that was no comfort: he was a loser in that film. I was still bored and tired and annoyed--only four more minutes had passed.
"Uff..."
I stretched both of my legs out, locked them together, and lifted them to a pike, attempting to straighten them as much as possible; I felt the resistance of my hamstrings: "how unsymmetrical?!" So, I pinned back certain parts, trying to refashion them into something more "normal." I decided to just be thankful that they function. They did get me through the kickboxing class, where he called me "beautiful," and flirted that I would be able to do some damage in the ring. I saw the gym: rows of heavy bags, waiting for punches of stress and kicks of frustration to pound them into senselessness. The bags were symmetrical as were their rows, except when interrupted by a weighted swing.
I found my eyes had shut, but my brain was still working, and I still was not sleeping--"why am I lying to myself?" I opened them.
And, I stood up and stared at my bed, then the clock, then the computer (had a camera been watching me, I may have resembled the chick in "Paranormal Activity"). With pangs of hunger in my stomach and a swelling of thoughts in my head, I walked toward the whitish-blue light.
I sat on my stability ball, squeezing it with my bent legs to force stability and levity, and started to type the thoughts that had been streaming inside during the past several hours of unstable sleep.
And here I've been: "Ya Allah, two more hours to go."
I'm going to sleep.
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