Post by Dreamfire on Oct 4, 2006 5:03:27 GMT -5
Should I wake him, or not?
He dreams of the shooting.
Sweating, fear, his skin hot.
Should I wake him or not?
From the nightmare he revisits
each night since he was shot.
He dreams of the shooting.
Sweating, fear, his skin hot.
Should I wake him or not?
From the nightmare he revisits
each night since he was shot.
~
Jim woke happy, he stretched and yawned.
Christie was gone from her side of their bed.
He glanced at the clock- smiling - he’d slept in.
The aroma of cooking arrived and through the door
he could see her at the stove,
she was flipping a pancake,
holding the pan in both hands,
tongue poking out the side of her mouth.
His smile grew, creases at the sides of his eyes deepening.
And her smile - when the pancake landed squarely back in right side up -
sunshine, warming him from the inside out.
Her smile had always warmed him
on even the bleakest of days.
Sun streamed in the window,
pooled on the bedspread –
butter on toast -
and fell to the floor-
golden pond in the summer.
Hungry for the light in her eyes
he threw off the covers
swung his legs out of the bed -
ready for the silky warmth of the sun-warmed boards.
But his feet hit ice.
The shock of the cold,
hit him with surprise and
he gasped.
Should I wake him or not?
Can’t leave him suffering
Nightmares should end
And I love him…
Can’t leave him suffering
Nightmares should end
And I love him…
Honey? Jimmy? nightmare again?
Her hand on his arm?
He turned from the pillow.
Confusion, she was here but how?
He could still see her in the kitchen,
no,
the kitchen,
you couldn’t see the kitchen from the bed.
He blinked
fighting murky darkness that spread between him and the idyll of the kitchen.
To fight the cold that seeped
he needed her smile beside him,
but it too
faded before the dark fog as if
he had never seen her sitting there.
His hand reached out as the image fled before the dark.
Nightmare, she said nightmare, he must have woken in the night, that’s why it was dark.
His heart clutched at the internal logic of the dream
But the warm surface was shaken
Something wrong, dreadfully wrong
Memory surged
stinging his eyes.
He fought against the tide,
precious breath,
hold it tight, don’t breathe in the salty spray
or you’ll drown, unable to rise above the dark sea.
Night, that’s why.
He reached for the clock, searching for its glowing face
four- eighteen am. The familiar voice of a woman
he had never seen, would never see, he didn’t want to hear.
He closed his eyes to shut out that voice.
It made no difference.
Fearing the touch of his mind on so delicate a surface,
nevertheless, he probed.
His heart began to pound as he
dragged in the oxygen
refused to go under.
Sickness subsiding,
he bobbed in the waves of thought.
No dial glowed before his face,
he turned his head,
no sheen from streetlights,
nor glint from her eyes
nor sun nor moon beam to break the completeness of the dark.
Gritting his teeth, he clutched the clock, drove home the mechanism that freed the voice of his nightmare. Four – eighteen am.
He returned the clock to the nightstand.
“Same dream?” Christie’s voice, warm with concern,
her smile nowhere to be found,
undeniable.
He put his head in his hands,
only a dream.
He sunk back down,
she snuggled in close. Winter chill in their bed,
he cooled beside her, and calmed himself, eyes roaming,
denying himself the luxury of closed lids.
Not a nightmare, a dream.
“Yeah, I guess.”
