"Sleep Deferred"

Something I wrote a while ago:

What happens to sleep deferred?
Does it dry up one's brain like a raisin in the sun
Or fester in one's stomach like a sore -
and make one's nose run?
Does it make breath stink like rotten meat?
Or crust one's eyes over -
like a syrupy sweet?


Maybe it just makes bags
like a heavy load.


Or does it implode?

~adapted from Langston Hughes' Harlem: A Dream Deferred

(Yes, this is what I do when I'm sleep deprived.)