Like a threat of the day's end
Darkness and shadows loom
The bed creaks, the blanket shifts
As the child lays in her room
Whimpering and trembling
Sobbing in fear
"I don't want to sleep,"
says the child, as a tear
Slips down her cheek quietly
She tries to keep her eyes closed
And eventually drifts off, oblivious
To all monsters and ghosts
Years down the road, she's not afraid
Of sleeping all alone
However a scarier thing has appeared
A teenager's pleasure: her phone
Ghosts and monsters don't exist
She's not afraid anymore
But she's enslaved by the screen in her hand
Once she closes her door
The tweets, statuses, endless loops
Of the six-second moving picture
She's sucked in and her phone has become
A deadly, permanent fixture
"I don't want to sleep,"
says the teen, as tears start to come
From her blood-shot eyes that have yet to blink
Cramped is her right thumb
Scrolling continuously on a screen
That steals her precious sleep
She's sleep-deprived and knows her mistake
But cyberspace is just too deep
A black hole, a vaccuum,
a constant distraction
A questionable force
with too strong of an attraction
"Stop, stop, stop," she thinks
"I'll sleep after this one..."
An hour later: "I'll stop right here
Just one more, and I'm done"