And with the end of the year

Comes pain and suffering

As if my body has had

Enough of me and

I begin to think I am

Losing my mind

(Which perhaps I am)

I lie in bed curled up:

Exhausted, embryonic

Sleep embraces me

Almost instantaneously

Like a mother to a lost child

And whilst I am in her presence,

Troubled dreams greet me and

I find myself first sighing and then crying

Forgotten memories of family faces

Come rushing back like old shadows

From my childhood; mysterious and haunting

And all of a sudden,

Waves of happiness and sadness

Wash over me, leaving me

As an emotional wreckage

On the shore of subconciousness

I am as I was before, returned

To a state of complete

Innocence and purity,

Through the confines of

This solitude