Early morning and I awake bathed in sweat,

The sun not yet raised and the sky full of rain

As I choke back a scream, face pressed into my

Pillow like a would-be homicide victim.

The wind is strong outside my walls, the air warm

For December, the soothsayers on the Weather Channel

Predicting heavy rain as they point magic wands at magic

Screens and intone their prophecies of High Pressure Systems.

Last night this was, but all is quiet now, my desperate scream

Spent against a nightmare that still lingers on the fringes of

My mind, that strange unexplored landscape of deep

Subconscious I once saw fit to call the Borderlands.

A place of limitless possibilities that I seldom travel, for

The journey is long and treacherous, the Conscious

Mind a land unto itself that must be crossed before

I ever approach those formidable gates.

Sleep is the key that swings them wide, as I approach on

Wavelengths powered by REM cells, they groan on hinges

Of abstract design into a new reality both wondrous and terrible,

Depending on the route my Nerve Centers take me.

I feel dread building within as strange images form out of

Nothingness, shadow shapes becoming more solid, distant thunder

Lending credence to the slamming of now distant gates, my only hope

Of escape as I pass a faded sign written in blood: Wrong Turn.

The shadows are shadows no more, their transformation

Completed, my grandmother’s house painted in shades of

Black and white, and I know the way one knows just by

Knowing when they travel the Borderlands that I walk

In an eight-year-olds shoes, and my unease deepens.

The rooms stand empty as I pass through them, not wanting

To walk here, unable to stop, windows bricked over, pale squares

Outlined on clawed up walls where pictures once hung, in some other

Long ago existence that never came to be.

Hazy light shines through cracks from the ceiling above,

Dust motes trapped in the beams like organisms held in

Glowing vials of lost technology, plaster dust thick on

Covered furniture as I’m dragged (walk) along.

The kitchen door is closed before me and I reach out

To push it open with a child’s grimy hand only to see

The door crumble to dust at my touch to reveal a narrow

Hallway papered with bleeding, watchful eyes.

It is a short passage ending in a small room, a passage

I want to flee from but cannot, and as I pass through

The empty doorframe, those wallpaper eyes start to

Shed tears to mix with the blood and someone starts to weep.

I am the one who weeps as I see the casket that awaits me

In the room ahead, a casket too large for the boy I am now,

A pinewood box standing upright against the furthest wall

And I know that it is my grandmother that rots within.

I tremble as it looms closer with each step I take down

The hall of tears, yes it is her in there, burial dress ruined

To expose what remains of long dead skin, vacant skull

Grinning beneath bug-infested hair.

But as I draw close enough to open the casket, it opens

For me with violent force, the figure inside motionless

And unmarred by death, not my grandmother at all, and

I start to scream when the corpse opens glassy eyes.

Bleeding eyes that begin to shed bitter tears as

They regard the child it was….

END

“Nightmare”