I Can't Touch Sleep, Yonah

Abstract

"I Can't Touch Sleep, Yonah" is a novella about a Modern Orthodox Jewish girl who is learning Judaic Studies during a gap year before college and who uses Jewish texts as a lens to sort through her struggles. The girl grapples with insomnia and is feeling forsaken by her friends, and when she adopts an abandoned kitten, her struggles only worsen. The novella explores mental health, anonymity, what it means to care for someone and to need to be cared for, and the search for meaning within chaotic stimuli.