Dreameaters

The eyes of the shadows blaze as the gaps between

Aged trunks writhe with an uncomfortable narcissism

That draws my gaze away from the crown of night,

The blistering stars and the bubbling moon,

To them. The Dreameaters.

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Fingers plugging the hollows in the trees,

They linger on the periphery, growling their discontent.

Mad with hunger the Dreameaters sway in the wind

As their teeth clatter in nervous anticipation

For the moment a dreamer forgets to ward against leeches.

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I have been out in the pale of night too long with too little sleep.

My dreams have spiraled out of control,

Pluming from my ears in sunset hues as though some deep,

Ancient volcano has ruptured within in and spat out

Every beautiful thought I have ever cradled in my chest.

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Magma runs through my teeth, dribbling down my chin,

And leaves smoldering footprints behind me,

A glowing arrow for the Dreameaters to follow.

They cluster around the treeline now where moonlight

Is swallowed whole and the mystical is spat out in its place.

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The twinkling fantasies in my mind, more hallucination

Than dream, continue to spill in thick waterfalls of snow from my eyes.

Fluttering off into the corners where the Dreameaters sulk,

Glittering bits of white are snatched from the air and

Shoved down their gullets.

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But I do not cry nor do I lament the loss of such small dreams.

The soft whimpers of the darkness with its bright,

Supernova eyes staring at me from between two oaks

Shatters something previously whole within me,

Something never to be mended.

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It is with cautious steps that I slip from the path and join

The vibrating darkness and it is with complete recklessness

That I open the floodgates of my passion and sob,

Cradled by the arms that once wished to tear me limb from limb,

The arms of a Dreameater.

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What is right and what is wrong falls by the wayside

As I volunteer my dreams,

Scoop them with two fingers from the sinewy mess of my thoughts,

And feed them into the sucking mouth of the shadow before me.

The deep violence rattling like a toy in my core settles.

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Without the light of the moon to discourage me,

Or the gentle murmuring of the wind to restrain me,

I peel back my skull and lean forward to pour the liquid galaxy

Of every reality I have thought to create down the Dreameaters throat

Until it is spluttering and round with its fill.

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There is blue appreciation, petite stellar nurseries,

Twinkling in its eyes as I step away

And slink back to my path of embers curling through the forest.

It has been fed and I have survived, two impossibilities

Lore has forbidden to coexist.

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Perhaps I live on the moon or have fallen into a new reality

Where the stars are static and our hearts orbit our desires

Or perhaps I have discovered the secret to outpace death

Is to meet it with compassion and force it to swallow

The beauty of my own realities, the worlds it can never steal.

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Silver Serpent Books

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