Sleep; is it not like being dead?

Not remembering the hours when abed

   My body rests but my mind is alert

Like some symbiotic creature going about its work

   It prioritizes my unidentified dreams

Cataloging and sorting is its theme

   What’s important and trivial is its task

A remembrance of my dreams rarely lasts

   In my mind are there two of me?

I surmise I am not the body you see

   My body will wither and die such is the case

The real me will survive the grave, it can’t be erased

   We close our eyes and cease to think

Into a dark nameless realm we sink

   From consciousness we slide into the abyss

Like a siren’s song, it’s impossible to resist

   We often embrace sleep’s caress

To escape the turmoil of our duress

   To forget, to not remember, to flee

To submerge oneself in an endless sea

   In slumber do we commune with God?

Our spirits permeated by some ethereal fog?

   Communing with it, relieving our distress

Comforting our being like a mother’s caress

   Our eyelids resists sleep’s embrace

Are we afraid? Is it death we taste?

   Why are we so sure we will awake?

Where’s the guarantee? It’s a risk we take

    All things living slumber must enfold

In defeat we surrender to oblivion’s toll

   Who is my mind and why do I sleep?

By whose command, It’s my mind I seek?