whispering after jokes and weeping willows and your odd timing

I hate when I don't take a sleeping pill and then three in the morning rolls around and I'm staring at the ceiling.
I've been trying to ignore dead horses all night. I try to tell the horses to go away, they're dead, I don't like beating dead horses. They insist they're only mostly dead, just in need of some CPR. I tell them it's uncouth and unthinkable to give a horse CPR.Nothing doing.
-We're only dead, they tell me, if you don't take any action.
-Well, you will always be dead, I say, because all courses of action pertaining to you dead horses sound like raving lunacy.
-In that case, you won't sleep tonight, they say as they waltz around the room. Changing into different spectral shapes, acting out Shakespeare, Milton, and my life.
After the first hour of this I read 'The Hiding Place' for two hours. I may love books, but I love my sleep better.
I tried sleeping for another hour after that. And I've tried silently shaking my fists at the dead horses while mouthing, "I don't believe in you, you are dead. Dead, dead, dead. There's more of gravy than of grave about you."
-Ha, ha! You're a funny one, they say. You're a funny clever little one and that's why we've come to stay.
-Oh no, don't do that! Send in the sheep, I beg of you. I'll count them one by one. I'll count every mutty hair on their backs. Only please, go away. I'll drink tea! I'll drink tea, I swear I will! Warm milk!
-If you didn't want to have this argument, says one dead horse, you should have taken that sleeping pill, but now it's too late.
-Can't we have this discussion in the daytime, like rational people? I ask.
-No. Says another dead horse, You should never go to bed angry.

I never did like horses.