I hate falling asleep
because there’s too much to do
and too much to see
in the world around me
and this is a half-truth
really
I hate falling asleep
because when I have dreams
I wake up from them
I’d rather stay here
than be shown
where I could have been.
So.Much.Truth.In.This.
This one. I like how the first stanza seems to be about how the speaker, like a child, doesn’t want to fall asleep so they won’t miss anything. Then turns round with those last 2 stanzas saying almost the opposite. Waking up is the disappointment because the dream is so much better than reality. Clever to use the word “really” as the turning point; making it its own stanza calls the reader’s attention to it. And it looks like “reality” with my glasses off — but that’s just me. Then the last half of the poem starts where the first half did. The last 3 lines create an image that will haunt me.
“I’d rather stay here
than be shown
where I could have been.”
Eerily beautiful.