More Insomniatic Meat

This is insomnia at its finest: the kind in which the insomnia creeps throughout the body's structures, moving between mind and flesh in an intricate dance which never leaves either in the same state of wakefulness. They are as oil and water, never truly meshing in the same degree, always whole of themselves, one suspended in the other, waiting to separate when enough time and stillness allows.
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It started as an exquisite restlessness in my body, particularly my legs and my aching knee. From there, it shifted to my stomach, where it began to toy with my digestion and shape a malevolent tightness in my chest cavity which has yet to dislodge itself. My mind was, at this point in the cycle, quite exhausted and prepared for a restful night. Such a blessing was not in the cards. Just as my body finally settled into comfort and began to feel weightless, my stupid mind snapped into awareness and forced me to stare into the backs of my eyelids. I pulled my eyes open, gazed out the window, listened to Joe snore beneath my bed. His mouth is like a seaside cavern, yawning and amplifying the incessant winds of the equally restless ocean. Perhaps tonight he merely echoed my own fitful churning, as a cavern would.
Alex lay next to me, warm, silent, motionless. She was fidgety earlier in the night, and it set me on edge for no apparent reason. My knee is aching dully now, reminding me of that exact moment when I got frustrated: how stupid it was, how foolish I am. It mocks me through analgesics, through icings, through massage, stretch, and ibuprofen. It is rheumatoid when my emotions flare up like a storm crossing the plains on a hot summer afternoon, aching, foretelling the fleeting dissatisfaction and anger I am sure to feel sometime that day. When my own anvils roll in, thick with rancor, it laughs, biting deeply into my nerves, aching like a joint that needs to be relocated but never will.
I sat up in bed after a quarter of an hour, knowing I would find no solace in my mind. The gears were cranking along, waiting for their part of the cycle to finish, for my body to find its second wind so the mind could shut down, leaving me awake in the most hollow way. When I arose to a seated position, I felt her warm hand caress my back, noted how fondly her fingertips traced a path along my spine, reassuring me in her own particular way. I was amazed at how knotted my dorsal muscles were, holding the weight of consciousness upon them.
When I got up to apply Icy Hot to my knee, get a drink, collect myself for a second round of trying to sleep, I could feel disappointment lying in the growing space between us. I feel horrible. I feel like a broken piece of machinery which, knowing it is now expendable, turns its back on its owner, thinking itself useless, only to see a single tear, filled with an entire race's worth of sorrow, fall to the ground. I will return.
My knee aches more profoundly now. It harmonizes with my disgust, amplifies it, like a cave by the sea.
I am driving all of these sounds, like the mercurial ocean, but I am so caught up in the sound of my own surf that I cannot discern a meek cry from the roaring noise of my own stormy consciousness.
My knee is at its limit: it surely can hurt no more, throbbing in a self-sustaining chorus of echoing pain in a time similar to my body's dilapidated circadian rhythm.
It is time for my return. I shall calm these waters if it takes me a night and a day, or forty, or thousands. I shall discern, and sleep, and dream.

RKS