Terror of the Night

Frequently,

you came to rest as day broke.
Frequently you failed to rest
and as day closed you awoke:

you awoke and the nightmare continued.

What devil’s tongue rests on your lips,
spits as love sends hands to shake
in desperate exorcism, but:

will they wake you or will you break?

Tonight,

nothing about anything makes any sense.
Tonight you will possess
ev'ry thing of the nothing
the day represents.

You’ll sleep when you know it’s all alright.

Pierce your lips, induce your trance
with profane sticks of sick incense.
You burn with the hunger of nonsense,
your lips permit but the burning lance.

Two smokes,

constantly on the go.
Two subconscious smacks
could bring you back but would you know?

A little Catholic fire, in ashtray, smoulders.

Your unflowing tears make
cheeks dry and hostile.
Hope bears the burden of
the emotional sterile.

Temporarily,

your brain gets stuck between gears.
Eternally
your prisoner brain is stuck between ears,

captive behind prison window eyes,
eyes glazed on both sides
can’t evade the evil face
of arbitrary arbitrators
in that insanitary place.

Fervently,

you refuse solace in that place.
Furtively you steal away
but as you break they match your pace

then when you’ve run the lonely race
which you only lose if you win,
you discover life and begin.

But life was lost when you ran wild,
your mistakes born within.

You lost it:

a trinket to confirm affection.
When they find you,
how will they know your cause of affliction
without your wristband’s history of passion?

Your single-purpose hands
are otherwise effete.
Trembling, useless,
they only admit defeat.