Lawless Land

dreams … diaphanous … mysteries of the mind that will never find an answer fluid and dynamic beyond our affect or sense … personally, I remember only a couple from my childhood rather nondescript … and early adulthood was par - mostly confused jargon fueled by hormones hopes … regret … frustration lots of frustration dreams - an intense hindrance where life and death depended on my doing something that I just could NOT do no matter the effort … then, came the poison - The Deceiver lover and foe in one (let me tell you, the devil has a face) and with that particular toxin came the nightmares … now, don’t mistake we ALL have bad dreams for many reasons we can’t discern but these were beyond any imagination horrors, indescribable and lucid FAR beyond the bounds of any movie I’d ever seen any words I’d read any thoughts or origins, internal and outside the realm of my mind’s intricacies and courses nothing I had or even COULD conceive from … ELSEwhere - a very deep, dark elsewhere (and that’s what truly frightened me) and yet they came over and over and over weeks, months, years waking in the dark lips bleeding fists clenched like iron with screams on my breath - blood-chilling wails from my deepest core that brought others running that sounded like an agony, unquenchable and left me bawling - sobbing like a lost child but with far more passion and much, much deeper terror that stayed that gripped me that filled my marrow like a curse oh, it took a good half-hour to bring me back to my senses - to ease the flood … and it was a fright so intense that sleep became a gruesome beast one I could not control or comprehend or escape … my greatest fear - my enemy - became sleep itself yet if I DIDN’T sleep intentionally the nightmares that came when I finally gave in to exhaustion were even worse thus, I HAD to surrender each night and pray that the monster AND the poison would one day relent … and one day … they DID yes, they did (for the most part) but not without first having to endure a LIVING nightmare - a pain, illness, anxiety, and exhaustion I could never have imagined or even anticipated … oh, many times I failed, miserably to the point of wanting my own end - trying to bring it about but I failed there as well, (thankfully) and kept fighting a very lonely battle for the only other option was death - a very powerful motivator … then … time and good fortune brought me a release - a miracle, in my humble opinion (some people disagree) a thin, orange sliver of bitter bite beneath my tongue and a new life … literally a salvation and a second chance to LIVE for which I am endlessly grateful and yet … every so often a dream will come from the darkest memories of that time and grasp my heart with its black hand and SQUEEZE my being til I awake with a wail and a wet face … a payment, I believe (or a reminder) for a very bad choice … so, I say a prayer that hell has seen enough of me close my eyes and drift back to that realm where I am at the mercy of the darkness again … in the hold of happenstance and at the favor of my mind’s deepest and strangest and most capricious … meanderings. * this is a form I created called “Bookend Free Verse - I hope you enjoyed it * Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, September 10, 2023