Insomnia

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First post 3am cigarette:
Insomnia. Again. Witnessing this new, strange city before me; its expanse, its quiet, its lights casting eerie fluoresce against the clouds reminding me of the northern lights and home. The night is cool but I sit nude on my porch. It’s past three in the morning and anyone who can see is probably drunk and will forget by morning. And I’m too lazy to bother. I puff lazily on a cigarette hoping that any moment I’ll be seized by drowsiness so I can make off to bed. The view from my balcony is prettier at night, prettier being a strange word to use as it implies some kind of beauty. At night, or in my case in the morning, the cracked terra cotta roofs and the spider webs of electrical wire draped between the houses are barley visible. Apsan’s boney spine is visible between the taller buildings that obscure my view and the clouds glow pink and green from the reflected fluorescents from the shining city below. So… less ugly then.

Post 3am cigarette #2: Still up. Lied in bed for forty minutes without blinking. Held my breath for over a minute. Saw stars. Did not pass out. Thought about my toes for fifteen minutes. Did not pass out. Made them tingle though.
From the balcony I can hear her bark in her sleep, the same bronchial rattle that plagued me the week before. Her cough keeps me up. The green fluorescent light from the Garden Hotel that peaks through the curtains to shine directly on my face no matter how many times I adjust them keeps me up. The coffee I had for breakfast keeps me up. Every stupid thing I’ve ever done in my life from crying in grade when the teacher couldn’t get my name right to crying in the street with a broken heart at age twenty keeps me up. The fact that I can relax keeps me up. The length of my toe nails keeps me up. This, at least, is within my control, so I clip them.

Post 3am cigarette #3: I pray for drowsiness. Doesn’t come. I tried reading to induce sleep but I got caught up in the story. Switched to reading the labels on the products that I brought from home. No dice. Learned a lot about deodorant though.
The sun won’t breach the surrounding mountains until 7:30 due to Korea’s lack of daylight savings time. I have no interest in watching the sun rise this morning. I’m thinking about preschool. After preschool there’s the rest of my day. I need rest. I can hear our land lady moving around one floor below us. Apparently I’m not the only sleepless soul at a quarter to five in Daegu. I hear the familiar whine of her laundry machine and think about the poor woman’s perpetual state of laundry. She’s always washing, folding, hanging, rinsing or repeating. I realize it’s the laundry that keeps her up, the pile staring her in her sleepless eyes from the corner of the room. She’s done what she can to help her rest. I hope the steady hum of her washer soothes her to sleep. Maybe it is her lullaby. It’s just one more thing to keep me awake.

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