Another Maze for the Rat

 20 after midnight...
Have to wake up early...
Sleep,
When and where actually needed,
Has never come easy...
Not on a regular schedule...
There's a ritual
Of sorts...
Milestones that have to be reached...
Time takes its time...
A certain undetermined
Number of minutes
To be lost in thought...
Even while distracted
By an indeterminate number of minutes
Of internet TV,
In the very least,
Providing background noise...
Ferrets tumbling across the floor,
And rumbling
Through corrugated black tubes...
Occasional kisses and belly rubs...
Relaxing enough
To allow myself to sleep
Takes time...
Naps are easy...
Sleep comes easier
When the sun is up...
Dreams are actually remembered
When the sun is shining...
The night swallows my dreams...
Holds them like a secret
From my conscious mind...
The transition from sleeping
To waking
Is jarring...
Often physiologically so...
And that, too, takes time...
Mental preparation...
Nothing comes easy...
Nothing comes naturally
Except for my ability
To improvise...
The will to survive...
The ability to adapt...
Everything else is a maze
For the rat...
It comes complete 
With electric shocks,
And buttons that dispense food pellets...
Maybe even a tiny 
Minotaur analogue
At the center of this...
Positive and negative reinforcement...
That's how they train you
To do funny little tricks...
Jumping through hoops...
Pressing all the right buttons,
And avoiding all the ones
They have deemed to be "unacceptable"...
Paying your taxes...
Exchanging ones and zeros
For necessary,
As well as unnecessary, 
Goods...
Sometimes little green
Pieces of paper...
Writing down the findings
To be published
In a peer reviewed journal...
Determining the value
Of the hypothesis and of the individual
To the profit margin
Of the corporation...
As above so below...
Society is a model
Of an individual mind...
The things we do to each other,
We do to ourselves...
And we often
Get way off track...
Like this poem...
I seem to recall it being about sleep,
And my uneasy grasp
Of transitioning either
In or out of it...
Rambling thoughts
Are an anxious response
To that moment,
I suppose...
The torrent of words in 
Dozens of small thoughts
That swirl around madly...
They don't all deserve my attention,
But they all draw my attention...
I get by...
I'm used to it by now...
They chatter like water
Bubbling down a small stream
Winding through the woods...
Back ground noise,
Just like the TV's static...
Another maze for the rat...