As Deka Piyana Lyrics by Rookantha Gunathilaka

I can’t close my eyes and fall asleep
No, no, I can’t sleep
You walk through my restless, fidgeting mind
And you won’t let me sleep

Even when I try to settle my mind and rest
You won’t allow even that
When you curl up against me, soft and tender
I don’t even want to sleep anymore

There’s a secret I want to tell you
with my lips pressed to your earlobe
If you stay far away I can’t say it
because the others would hear
Oh my love, don’t trouble your heart
just come close and say you love me
There’s so much I want to tell you
hold me close and say you love me

I can’t close my eyes…

A young man lies awake at night, and the whole song is his half-complaint, half-confession to the woman he loves. He cannot close his eyes and drop off, because she is the one keeping him up. The first lines set it perfectly: every time he tries to quiet his mind and sleep, she is already there, walking through it, stirring it up, refusing to leave him in peace. It is the sweet, helpless restlessness of being in love, the kind of night anyone who has fallen hard will recognise.

Then the feeling shifts from frustration to something warmer. By the second verse the two of them are together, she has curled up against him, soft and tender, and now he says he does not even want to sleep. That little turn is the heart of the song. At first she steals his sleep without trying; once she is in his arms, he gladly gives it up himself. The Sinhala word turul (to nestle or curl up close) carries that closeness, the warmth of two people pressed together, and the song keeps returning to it like a refrain.

The most intimate image comes in the long verse. He has a secret to tell her, and he wants to say it with his lips right against her earlobe, so close that no one else could possibly hear. That single picture does all the work: it is not just that he wants to whisper, it is that what he feels is private, meant for her alone. He even tells her why she has to come near, if she stays at a distance he simply cannot say it, because others would catch the words. So he coaxes her: don’t worry, don’t let your heart fret, just come close and tell me you love me.

By the end it is less about losing sleep and more about wanting her near enough to share everything he is holding inside. He says there is so much he wants to tell her, and all of it depends on her closing that last bit of distance and letting him hold her. The sleeplessness that opened the song melts into tenderness, and what the listener is left with is that simple, aching wish of new love, to be close enough to whisper.