The Lost Words

(I wrote this sometime ago and was inspired to post after reading Darrell Troon's, 'The Grey Word Thief. )

It’s the middle of the night

when the words fall out my head,

they are there when I wake up

it’s as if my brain has bled -

all the lost and secret things

hidden in my mind,

the the words I want to say

that in the light of day can’t find.

But there is nothing I can do at night

except to try to write them down,

so in the morning when I wake,

they can still be found.

But usually what happens,

is that, by the time I find my pen

they have disappeared completely,

and I have to start again.

Because those words - they are elusive

and they are never quite the same,

or as clever as I thought,

as when they fell out of my brain.

There is always something missing -

a random puzzle piece,

a slice of blue sky thinking

that made the words unique.

So I return to bed frustrated

awake, deprived of sleep,

wishing there was a way

to save the words I’d like to keep.

Make them stay inside my brain

and not fall out my head,

so they are still there in the morning

when I wake up in my bed.