The body is ready for sleep long before the mind agrees to it. You have turned off the lights, and the day keeps talking — a list, a conversation you would redo, the same small worry walking the same small circle. These are seven short poems for sleep: not a method, not a wind-down routine to get right, just a few quiet lines to rest your attention on while the noise moves farther off. Read one. Leave the rest for another night.

---

One — The House Is Closing

The day is allowed to be over.
The dishes can stay where they are.
Nothing left on the list
is going anywhere
that the morning can’t reach.

Two — Lower

Let the shoulders come down
from where they have been holding.
Let the jaw unclench.
You are not on watch tonight.
The dark will keep itself.

Three — For the Mind Still Talking

You don’t have to answer it.
The thought can stand at the door
all night if it wants to.
You are already
somewhere quieter.

Four — Slow Walk Down

There is no hurry into sleep.
Down is not a place you fall —
it is a stair you take
one breath at a time,
and the next one is already there.

Five — Setting It Down

Whatever you carried up the stairs,
you can set it on the floor.
It will still be yours in the morning.
For now, let the hands be empty.
Let the empty be enough.

Six — The Room Is the Same Room

Nothing here needs fixing tonight.
The walls are where you left them.
The window holds the dark
the way it always has.
You are home, and it is late, and that is all.

Seven — Almost

You don’t have to find sleep.
Let it find you.
Stop looking toward the morning.
Stay here, in the breathing,
where the day has finally
let go of your sleeve.

---

There is no order you have to read these in, and no number you have to finish. One short poem, read slowly, is often enough to give the mind something quieter to hold than its own list. If you wake again, the page is still here. And if you would rather close your eyes than keep them open on a screen, the same poems are read aloud, slowly, in one calm voice.

This is calm, quiet-reading content — a place to rest your attention for a few minutes. It is not medical advice, and it is not a treatment for insomnia or anything else.