I could sleep ....

I could sleep, but, why? To sleep is to risk the horror of dreaming
When he creeps in to do mischief in mind and bed, body and bone
And, softly whispers of joys unnumbered, unmet, unfelt, unbelievetd
There is nothing there. It was and is, as always, just misty untruths
Dreamt up by loneliness, like refuse from the dying soul dripped out
So I lay awake, here, and let my mind wonder free, hoping for escape
It is a prison of lies, a gulag of romantic notions, in which it is locked
 A prison that no one but me can see; even the jailer does not see it
And he knows not of the imprisonment, nor the torture he has inflicted
To him it is a new day, with things to do and people to see or vice versa
It is me who suffers under his merciless wiles, and cannot be ever free
I could sleep but it would change nothing. It would be temporary blackness.
Life is black all day through, but, at least awake one can avoid the dreaming