Sleepwalk Sermons

For when the walls don’t listen, but the night won’t shut up either.

Photo by mali desha on Unsplash

Sleep

She drips from the ceiling

in untranslated lullabies,

signing solace in a dialect

my scars can’t decode.

She left me like a name

I once prayed with,

now it scalds the tongue

and won’t leave the throat.

They want me docile.

Circle, square, oval,

the geometry of obedience.

Before food. After shame.

Beneath the tongue, above suspicion.

“May cause drowsiness.”

No shit.

I’ve been nodding off mid-sentence,

but never mid-suffering.

The ceiling coughs again,

hyena on its fifth afterlife.

I name it Hope-less,

just to laugh back.

You wanted a battle?

Yeah, let’s battle,

but not with fists,

not with fury,

with the quiet violence

of survival.

Tread lightly,

this war’s already left scars

they can’t see,

a devil’s grin behind my silence,

a whisper in the hymns

they mistake for prayers.

I used to treat my arms like ashtrays.

No simile.

Just the smoldering truth.

Still got the itch,

still read the braille of burn marks

like scripture I wrote in relapse.

Now I swallow prose instead of pills.

Because ink doesn’t numb,

it remembers.

It doesn’t knock me out,

it calls me in.

I write dissections.

Not confessions,

just truths,

dressed in dirge,

blood-lettered and bone-wrapped.

Not pretty. Not pitied.

Just real.

I bled them raw

so you’d feel the scripture

beneath the scab.

Look again.

There’s a hymn in every hemorrhage,

a psalm stitched inside the pus,

a gospel gurgling

where silence split its tongue.

Each line: a rite.

Each word: a revolt.

It’s my right.

To script. To scream.

To shred silence

into something louder than healing.

Living makes less sense

when the only echo you get

is the sound of leaving.

No goodbyes.

Just the slam of a door

in the windowless chapel

we once built from shared breath.

Is that a life? Or just its outline?

I don’t know yet.

I’m still returning missed calls

God won’t pick up.

Maybe He’s screening.

Maybe He’s scared I’ll answer

with the same silence.

I’m not leaning. I’m learning.

Not to be better.

Just less breakable.

A composite of spit, ember,

regret, and recursion.

I walk these burning wards

with ink in my veins

and sirens in my chest.

My breath’s a stutter,

but my truth?

Fluent. Feral.

Flashing its teeth in the dark.

Author’s Note:
I wrote this late last night, sick and sleepless, in frustration over the noise that wouldn’t stop. There’s no original art with this post,I just didn’t have the strength. This piece isn’t polished, isn’t part of any series. It’s just raw words, scribbled out of desperation to get them out of my head. If it resonates, thank you for reading. I hope it brings you a little understanding, or at least a moment of quiet in your own night.

If this resonated with you, consider subscribing or sharing. I don’t post for perfection; I post because some things need to be said.