by Sandra Lowen

Created on: June 19, 2010

NIGHTMARES – Poetry

Every night, he comes,

Slinking past my slumbering bed companion,

Slithering across the sheets to where I lie

In tortured expectation.

“You’re mine!” he croaks. “Mine! Mine with no escape.

Yell your head off. None will rescue you.

I have a license for what I do.

And I won’t kill you; I won’t let you die.

If I did, who’d believe my lie,

The vile deceptions I told about you

So they would pity me

And censure you,

So I can do

What I do?”

He reaches clawed hands. I muffle my screams

In pillows as I did back then.

I gasp for air; none comes. I flail to push him away,

To push his hands away.

To push his breath away.

To push this death I live away.

I jerk awake.

The arms are familiar.

“It was long ago and far away,” a tender voice says.

“Those days are gone. You’re safe with me.

Our children slumber in their beds

The world is sweet and soft and good.”

Tomorrow’s sun will shine on you;

The warm and truthful sun.

Sleep, now, in arms that are true.”

Soft hands gentle me stroke my back.

Sweet murmured words grow misty soft

And blend into the gentle rise-and fall.

In sleep my savior rolls away

And I lie gasping, grasping the sheets,

Awaiting his slithering return.

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