Conscience

Conscience, that stalking authority

With its vast reach of spies

Prepares for night’s darkness

Patient for the dreams to appear

Slips surreptitiously under the sheets

Waits to threaten street arrests

Feared jails and prisons

Torture and coerced confessions

Rendering judgment for wee hour sentencing

Frightened of our thoughts

We listen for the alarm clock

Guilt keeps our eyes shackled to our lids

Cicadian minutes keep honesty waiting

As phantom minutes in limbo’s shadow

Await apnea’s next breath

The escape from death by guilt

Sunrise is coming

It never fails you

Your inner voice is readying another day

Anxious to echo through the canyons

Of your dreaded abyss

Morpheus will visit again tonight

Bringing along conscience

The inward monitor that never sleeps