Frost at midnight

It's been 48 hours of waking. I'm supposed to be writing three papers, tonight: a close reading of Frankenstein, a research paper on The Tempest, and a close reading on the character of Dorian Gray from the perspective of Coleridge's ancient mariner- oh yeah- I also have an exam at 8am. I was just hoping that this might get my focus back on writing instead of endlessly sailing on the tubes of you.

This hollow, over-energetic lift I'm in does nothing to focus my fingertips. I might as well be asleep- If I could be asleep. Freneticism(I should start a movement...) does me no favor. This is easy for me- it's just like thinking. Putting things on a page for a grade, though- I hate it. I don't want my thoughts to represent a number. I want my thoughts to provoke more of themselves.

Somni-masochism

Why do I do this to myself- this whole sleepless thing? Surely it is for the great late night television programming. Maybe then, it is the culinary options available at 3am. Maybe the bloodshot conversation with other, more chemically addled beings conscious at that hour are what keeps me. All of the above? When the sun happens to be visiting my side of the globe, I long for the hours when I may gorge myself on IHOP's splendorous menu, share conversations with tweakers, then venture home to some animated insanity on that cold cathode ray tube. 

Sadly, none of those do it for me. Long had I wondered about why I desire the delirious embrace of night's hours. It was until I had read through a few centuries of literature that I realized everything since Romanticism has practically been Romanticism under a different name. Decadence, Modernism, Futurism, ad nauseum. I willingly deprive myself of sleep for the same reason Wordsworth wanders through Tintern Abbey. Not trying to compare myself to Coleridge, just my methods to his. People connect to the sublime(the muse/ essence/ God/ universal sentience/ whatever/ good ol' inspiration) in different ways. Maybe daffodils do it for you, but for me, the only juice behind ink is a dark sky, a hollow neon glow, and a mind attempting to dream awake.