a repeating dream

In a repeating dream

I'm a child again

lost in the dark

trying to find the way

back to my father's house,

stranded in the

open field

which lay, rustling, 

across the street.

-

My wide eyes

search desperately for light

looking for the eyes

of the house I call home

- only two days of the week -

through the thickening fog.

-

My voice is gone from screaming,

soundwaves reaching arms out

for help, desperate

but only nature responds

and my weak arms tremble.

-

I lay on the ground

cold and waiting

for a faceless figure to come

for your long arms to collect me

and bring me back to safety,

to pool my body in light

and free me from the grip of branches

which nip at my skin

until my young body

bleeds, lost

in the breezy grass.

-

When I wake up, sweating,

I wipe my wet face and

my unstable hands

reach out, clawing.

-

They tug at the curtains

and the soft light which enters

brings to mind your taunting home

and brings to my eyes burning tears

knowing that you aren't around.

-

Separated for a lifetime,

you created a child

and tossed it aside,

and my arms can no longer reach

out towards a figure

I see only in the abstract -

exclusively in memory

or as a digital image -

which hands cannot touch,

which ears cannot hear,

which eyes cannot truly see

beyond the cold of ones and zeroes.

-

I find my fear of tenderness

and try to question it

but soon I give up

figuring this is the gift 

that you have given me;

the gift of detachment,

the gift of nightmares

the gift of an inability

to ask anything other

than darkness

for help.

-

In a repeating dream

I'm a child, still

and in my waking hours

I struggle to grow up,

I struggle to accept myself

still lost in that dark

still lost in that wilderness

and you are not coming,

you will not

pull me out.

-

When I wake up shaking,

the room feels so empty

but I envision your presence there

and even that cannot

look back at me,

solitary in the corner of the room,

both of us alone

and pained

but more comfortable in pain

than in reconciliation.

-

In a repeating dream,

I wake up afraid

and curse the mistakes the last generation made,

pointing the finger

anywhere but inwards,

my eyes starting to burn

as the sun rises

and the darkness 

still

 refuses to lift.