Forever Awake Dreams
by Odin Roark

A father dreams of getting it right,
finally succumbs to sweat drenched nightmares.

Somewhere…
He stumbles about to clear the room.
Guitar.
Videogames.
Posters.

Broad stairs to the garage
once of stable hardwood,
now rickety rotted support,
creaking of memories crushed,
once plush carpet soft with warmth,
now but cold cinders beneath his feet.

Sensory deprivation smiles,
releasing starving glimpses of love,
once bathed by generous moonlight
spilling from window to banister,
to door,
to now barren concrete.

Here…

Children’s eyes once visualized
what freedom’s wheel would be like.

The father wander outside,
stares blankly on the gray-white night
reflecting off algae encrusted pool,
now with but deflated basketball adrift.

Through surrounding weeds and shrubs,
GI Joe action figures shimmer their loneliness as well,
staring like him at the pools granite carved beachhead,
imagination’s vast ocean of backyard fantasy,
now only a quiet make-believe war
since reduced to the calm of real battles lost in
jungle rot’s toxic fumes saturating all.

No prisoners taken.

History.

The scuffling of his slippers
rake the humid night’s heaviness,
like sandpaper dragging across
memory’s fine threaded tapestry.

Lying down among the overgrowth,
he peers through broken limbs,
crumbling leaves,
moon, water, house.

Eyes squeezed shut deliver regret’s creative gallery,
a lifetime installation,
perhaps never meant to be walked through
just yet…

Such are musings sometimes destined
to be but nightmares,
while dreams remain forever awake in the heart.