Nightmares

Do you ever dream about nightmare things?

In an old building, with broken stairs, dirty drains, and hidden faces.

At a crime scene staged to learn of murder,

then the lesson itself hunted by murderers?

Flipping breakers, what is that light?

In the closet, unnoticed, forgotten,

a memory of music who used to live here.

No time to lose, run for your life,

the killer is here, taking their time.

Nowhere to run, no place to hide,

the children butchered with no north nor south

no east no west, no reason at all.

Open your eyes to a darkest night,

awake at last, uneasy, unsafe,

the room is moving, the shapes are twisting,

on the walls like robotussin.

Eyes adjust to make things worse,

turn on the light awake at last.

Was someone in here while I slept?

Behind the cord and electric vine,

something has moved to a different place

an old box, I forgot I had,

under a hidden comb I forgot was there

is a picture of a woman alive and dead.

Warning, keep away from children,

the film may cling and prevent breathing

This bag is not a toy.

An image underneath, where she is again,

alive and dead, the same eyes staring,

imagined face, imagined eyes

why do they still haunt me

when I look inside?

The moral of this verse: when you walk with evil, in the valley of darkness, don’t waste a single moment trying to look cool. If you are afraid, be afraid. If you are angry, be angry. If you are in love, be in love. The slightest hesitation at an illusion is all that it takes to be snapped up into the jaws of Death, the eternally ravenous, who eats evil and good the same.