Pillow Talk

Oh the things you do to drown out all the voices in your head
And the thoughts that come to you at night and keep you up in bed
When book jackets and receipts and photographs galore
Are swept away by some oscillating foe onto the floor.
Is there a word for it, that makes you turn up the radio
When the doors are bolted shut and the lamp is turned down low?
Can anybody name the thoughts that keep you up at night
But fall away when pen is lifted over paper by daylight?
Just call it insomnia and take a pill an hour before going to bed
Or chalk it up to learning how to fall asleep alone instead
Or tell yourself it's just the trouble of moving into a new place
And turn your pillow over so it feels cool against your face.
But when the cover closes on your latest piece of literature
Or you turn off the television from your bedside, if you prefer,
They come to you and call to you and dance about your head
And pull the twist the covers all about at the foot of your bed.
You're sure if you can't spit them out you'll never get to sleep
And yet each flustered morning, they are secrets that you'll keep,
Whether no one's there to listen or it's just too hard to say
They fall to the back of your mind, so neatly stashed away
That you'll never even think of them as the day wears on
So that when the night comes once again they are anything but gone!
Again you're haunted in the night by something you can't name,
And no matter how high you set the fan each evening is the same.
So you fix your midnight cocktail and you take your sleeping pill,
But in the moments before sleep, you simply can't lie still.
It's an endless game of cat and mouse you're playing with your brain,
A game without a rulebook, a scoreboard, or a name.
Turn down your bed, pick up your pen, there's one sure way to fight,
And when you've had your fill of it, then you can say good night.