Dreaming away the night protected by the darkness that places a blanket over my fears

I am soothed by the familiar thoughts of a mother sitting next to my ailing soul holding my hand and putting a sea of peaceful waves into the corners of my mind

Lying on a bed of stones crushing the pores of my tortured body taken over by a death filmed in slow motion and repeated over and over in the theater inside my head

Each memory played in rewind until the blood covers my body and drips away what I cannot forget

I am drenched in a past that is tattooed in my memory with poisoned ink

Serving as a permanent reminder of my inability to reach out and return the same protection that provided security all my life

Now I am alone but always surrounded by the ghosts of a past that will never die

I look up, she is there

I look down, not to clear

To the left she appears; to the right nightmares aware

I close my eyes and with each second of darkness a million thoughts of visual agony formulate

It is a utopia of inner destruction taking over my body one moment at a time and never to stop until ashes remain