Insomnia

1. 

I start to dream I am waking 
and wake with a start from the dream.

Shadows gather in the attic, 
in the hallways, bedrooms, walls:

their smell, like gas, is everywhere. 
I start to dream I am waking . . .

2.

Night falls, then falls again 
as if drunk, as if slipping on ice

while clothed in leaves whose 
damp mass could drag telephone poles

to their knees. The rain is cold. 
Its secrets flood the throat of the gutter.

3.

Childishly, the voice in my head 
continues to give me the wrong directions.

Left at the next exit, it says. No, the next one. 
I want to wring the little bastard’s neck.

The sky is gray. If I make it to daylight, 
I’m never taking this blasted road again.

—Christopher Yu