Night Wars
by Odin Roark

One's daytime nightmare,
like the boughs of a shadowless tree,
leave little of light's residue.

Reaching day's end,
thoughts entreat gathering dusk,
knowing bedding down bodes
perhaps a memory-tortured night.

For the disheartened,
attempting sleep is to challenge the day,
to outlive despair,
defy the heart as fossil,
spurn one's paths as molten,
one's feet as stone.

Even as morsels of love weaken nightmares,
such is but a kindly foil,
its caress like a quick-fix lozenge
melting to soothe tomorrow’s reality-tongue.

Such is the curse of sleep for some,
where doubt lurking in synaptic shadows,
breeds giant clouds,
bursting with false teardrop-smiles,
small as rain,
flooding all reason,
a fear cascading to its nowhere,
and still everywhere it remains.

Oh, for gentleness...

Perhaps it too succumbs
A loneliness made no longer lonely,
finding a twisted reward in shadow,
becoming a whispering shade
awaiting the hush of deliverance.

Why…

Why do calming dreams seem exiled away from us,
we who in our childhood games shouted aloud disturbances,
knowing it was but a game,
fearing not that any listening might harm us.

What happened to innocence?