Residual Dreaming

The daylight hours misleading in smiles and laughter,

Tall walks and hot showers,

Crystallised sunsets and falling rain,

Varnished toenails and fragrant flowers.

**

She’s sequential and a paradox rolled into one,

Drools innocence but hides behind a veil of anxiety,

Unexpected giggles escape at inappropriate times,

And she’s the black sheep, the outcast of society.

**

Strong shoulders and tepid tears,

A mind of excuses and indelibly wrong,

A hidden message impossible to read,

Decked in forgiveness but doesn’t belong.

**

She imprints with all her ducks in a row,

No one notices the invisible grimace behind her smile,

She scolds the mountain of trauma that rides her hard,

While answering the call, sweating through her wayward style.

**

A scarlet letter holds her still,

A whiff of breath will bow her down,

Steel spine carries her load, destructive by nature,

Offloading her hopes within the seams of an evening gown.

**

Then darkness falls,

She welcomes the cry of the starlit night,

Closes her eyes, honouring the magic of sleep,

Instead, she faces the demons that cause her fright.

**

Traumatised, the daylight spells her doom,

Her heart surrendered to the residual pain,

Stumbling and tumbling, she loses control,

The world tilts, her days are never the same.

**

She’s not the hero predicted by some,

Eyes gloss over the breaks and cracks,

She can no longer stem the bleed,

Leaving in her wake highlights in bloody tracks.

**

Not one to show the effort of her inherent grin,

Normalised for the world at call,

Then, just one dream bestowed on the darkest night,

Begets her courage while she’s destined for the fall.