Childhood Nightmare

October 2016

Is loving a sin?
Can desire be bitter?
Can we learn
To lie like truth?

I lay like truth today
That familiar bitterness
Seeping from my pores
Sinner, liar, layer.

And it dripped
And dripped
And dripped
Slow, rhythmic

Now a faster cadence
And I, fearful, boxed in
Lonely, unheard
The drip-drip overwhelmed

Drowned me
As I fought futile
And suddenly, blink!
Silence again

Far in the distance
Of memory
Woke a child.