Insomnia

What keeps you awake at night? Most often when I can't sleep, it's because I am unhappy with myself. It's lying there wishing I'd said or done something other than what I did in a particular situation. And replaying the danged scenario over and over in a million different ways, imagining a better outcome. All for naught, of course, except to keep me awake all night. I'm thankful that these sleepless nights are far less frequent than they used to be. Maybe I'm learning to count blessings instead.


INSOMNIA
by Janet Muirhead Hill

Sometimes when we cannot sleep

We lie there counting silly sheep

But usually we’re counting should’ves,

What-if-I-hads, and wish-I-would’ves.

Words we’ve spoken and those not said

Ruefully, we replay in our head.

Hindsight gives us such clear vision

That in our thoughts, we seek revision.

Yet life has no button to re-record

And deeds once done have their reward.

For better or worse when a thing is done

It can’t be rewritten for anyone.

The best we can do as we count regrets

Is to learn a lesson and pay our debts.

Another poem slipped out of my mind onto paper. It's about writer's block. Nothing fancy or profound. Just fun rhyming.

Writer's blocks do happen,
at least they do to me.
Yet when they do, I don't know why,
It is a mystery.

I wonder why I cannot make
myself sit down and write.
What is the thing that stops my mind
and holds the block so tight?

And then a day will come along,
just as mysteriously
when I can sit and write and write,
words flowing fast through me.

I don't know what the reasons are.
There is no common thread
I only know I love the days
when stories fill my head

and I am teleported
to a land of make believe
as I pen upon the page
the words that I receive.