I would like to sleep please by Maddie DiMarco

It there anything more recent than something that happens every day? (That's an arguable issue, but this is a one sided conversation.) Teenagers aren't getting enough sleep. No one is getting enough sleep, to be fair. We keep writing, and no one ever starts reading. Its a topic so drawn out, you'd think we would have exhausted (pun very much intended) it by now. But, alas, we have not, and I've always got time to complain.

The world is not in time with our bodies. Its a ridiculous way to live. We wake up and smooth our hair before the sun has bothered to roll out of bed, which is completely out of sync with our natural clocks. Biology gave us a schedule and we keep tearing it up and setting it on fire. The natural circadian rhythm (did you know rhythm is the longest word in the English language with no vowels?) of a teenager is set 11pm-7am at the earliest. Most of the time, its later. (did you know that in ye olde times, most people slept in hour long fragments, and woke up in the middle of the night for a bit before going back to sleep for another 4 hours? A good life to live, if not for the plague.)

The clock says I should be in bed. My body says right now is a nice time for a walk. It shouldn't be possible for someone to feel jittery and exhausted at the same time (it feels like someone mixed caffeine and melatonin in my blood and shook like a protein smoothie) but teenagers are constantly reaching past the impossible.

I've constantly got things to do and places to be. People always call teenagers lazy, which is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard (I have to choose my life-path at a grand old 17 years old and people expect me to just be real chill about making the biggest decision of my life? The first thing I do when I sit down is think if I've got any work due). One of my friends doesn't get home until 7 pm. I watch another wake at 4 am to finish her homework. Often, I see someone fall asleep on the bus. Every morning I pass dead eyes and tired shuffles. I put my phone's brightness all the way up, hoping it will burn my retinas enough to keep them open. It doesn't work. (My computer is scalding my eyes right now).

Sleep is a biological need. Deprivation messes with everything from your hormones to your moods and the way your body breaks down food. Not a good thing to be messing with, yes? But we don't learn. "Learning to work with what you've been given is a part of adult life" people say. Adult life is a scam. Everyone is constantly playing pretend at a sense of maturity you never really achieve and the preening is giving me a headache.

I'm writing this with minutes to spare even though I've had a month to work on it. I'm not even done for the night. If you catch me looking dead and depressed, at least you will know the reason.

I hope you can feel my bitterness through the screen. I'd apologize for the terrible writing and the remarkably aggressive attitude, but I'm not being paid nearly enough to bother being pleasant. There's nothing like writing things I'll regret in the morning >:)

Thank you all, and good night.