How much sleep do we really need?

My body won’t allow for eight hours, not the sweet spot between the headline suggestion of seven to nine. More often it lies down at 10.30pm and clicks on a slideshow of the future with a side-dish of worries and a sprinkling of memories and feeds on its own exhaustion until 3am and then maybe the eyes will close

If I prime for sleep with alcohol or orgasm, that’s a 40-minute nap and then wake up and freak out about the black out and wonder who it was or who I am and where and why as if why can be answered from 10.30pm onwards my mind will shake every nerve and try for the answer and try and try and

Oh regrets but the whiskey tastes good but the gin tastes good and I never order shots but the shots taste good when someone else insists and spit the taste out with the toothbrush that night or the morning after

Which will begin at 6.30am because it does, because that is when life comes into focus and must be faced, even if I can’t move even if I can’t or won’t or don’t want to face it, the pets need feeding the job needs working and the hours trickle by shot by shot by stop by stop by slide by slide the news keeps rolling and the world is folding in on itself slowly slowly

Never fast enough, if it must, and never small enough, never small enough to be swallowed whole and tasted and enjoyed as if we could enjoy that bitter centre scented with what we know and what we do and what they do and the way it all burns down in every wakeful brain every day and night

And repeat