The Challenge of Learning

What a pity it is,
there's something amiss.
In the class where I learn,
all I do is yearn
to put down my head.
Better yet, go to bed.
To shut out the noise
and the teacher's voice,
with eyes tightly shut
dream peacefully, but (!)
for decency's sake
I must stay awake.
I must try to find
and reel in my mind
and put it to use
and staunchly refuse
a snooze to allow.
Though being sleepy, and how!
So, with eyes open wide,
a nap is denied,
and the battle is on
to stifle the yawn.

Loss

Sometimes, it's dark,
pitch-black, empty, deep.
A lightlessness painfully stark
.....frozen....
Step after step taken,
all there is, is the dark.
Sleeping shadows awaken
.....invisible....
Sounds unheard, sights unseen,
I feel them pressing in.
They are no more, but they have been.
.....lost....
Realities imagined, waking dreams,
subdued under the glare
of a thousand dark beams
.....intangible....
Desperately disappear, too terrified to stay.
Cloying fear, suffocating, and...
a spark winks into existence, far away
.....mockingly unreachable....
and fades.