06-30-2016, 12:59 PM
DRAFT 2
Night Terrors
A child asleep and walking to the hall and bathroom cabinets
and pouring medicines into the drain and shrieking to the empty bottles,
"They're coming! Help me!"
until father pinning shrieking body to the wall and yelling back, "Wake up!"
bear arms shaking back the yellowed eyes.
"They're coming! Let go!"
fighting for an hour, too small to rip away.
Normalcy returns by three AM in parents' bed asleep
but darting up in howls from four to five.
Possessed child, blood thick and high,
dreaming mind hurling sleeping body across an ocean splattering on the wall,
dreaming mind careening sleeping body from mountain peak to peak
or being eaten by an unnamed closebehind.
Possessed child surrounded,
death outside and stepping past the doorstep.
"Don't let it in,"
memory antique, sensory drain, mother crying,
"Pneumonia and almost died but finished the whole hospital tray
and cup of medicine today."
DRAFT 1
Night Terrors
As a child
sleepwalking,
I’d rummage through
the bathroom cabinets, spilling
medicines and toothbrushes in the sink.
Some nights, I’d wake up screaming
pinned to the hallway wall
in my father’s bear arms.
“Wake up, son. Come on,” he’d shake
me. “Kole!”
I’d eventually come back and sleep
in my parent’s bedroom, darting up from time
to time, only to be held back down by my parents
on either side of me.
Possessed behavior,
ever-present in my memory,
in these terrifying unremembered moments,
there is a feeling.
I’ll never be sure what it is, this feeling.
I’ve tried remembering
the devil for decades.
My blood feels dense, thick, high
like I’m hurling across an ocean to splatter
or careening from mountain peak to peak or be eaten
by an unnamed
closebehind.
Like death sits outside on the doorstep
and if I just stay inside . . .
I’m unsure of my earliest memory,
but I have three antiques:
when mom broke the plate and spilt the beans,
my father stepping out of his truck with my first dog,
and my mother crying behind me.
I was eating lunch from the edge of a hospital bed.
My dad said once, “You probably don’t remember,
but you almost died from pneumonia when you were a baby.”
I heard a monk speak on death as a slow process
of sense draining from you, followed by clarity.
Might I have begun the process,
of sensory drain
and death as a child in the hospital?
I see my parents’ deaths. My fear
of losing them is the same that tore me from my bed
as a child. My tears have not changed.
The unnamed closebehind:
my birth and death
surrounding me.
Night Terrors
A child asleep and walking to the hall and bathroom cabinets
and pouring medicines into the drain and shrieking to the empty bottles,
"They're coming! Help me!"
until father pinning shrieking body to the wall and yelling back, "Wake up!"
bear arms shaking back the yellowed eyes.
"They're coming! Let go!"
fighting for an hour, too small to rip away.
Normalcy returns by three AM in parents' bed asleep
but darting up in howls from four to five.
Possessed child, blood thick and high,
dreaming mind hurling sleeping body across an ocean splattering on the wall,
dreaming mind careening sleeping body from mountain peak to peak
or being eaten by an unnamed closebehind.
Possessed child surrounded,
death outside and stepping past the doorstep.
"Don't let it in,"
memory antique, sensory drain, mother crying,
"Pneumonia and almost died but finished the whole hospital tray
and cup of medicine today."
DRAFT 1
Night Terrors
As a child
sleepwalking,
I’d rummage through
the bathroom cabinets, spilling
medicines and toothbrushes in the sink.
Some nights, I’d wake up screaming
pinned to the hallway wall
in my father’s bear arms.
“Wake up, son. Come on,” he’d shake
me. “Kole!”
I’d eventually come back and sleep
in my parent’s bedroom, darting up from time
to time, only to be held back down by my parents
on either side of me.
Possessed behavior,
ever-present in my memory,
in these terrifying unremembered moments,
there is a feeling.
I’ll never be sure what it is, this feeling.
I’ve tried remembering
the devil for decades.
My blood feels dense, thick, high
like I’m hurling across an ocean to splatter
or careening from mountain peak to peak or be eaten
by an unnamed
closebehind.
Like death sits outside on the doorstep
and if I just stay inside . . .
I’m unsure of my earliest memory,
but I have three antiques:
when mom broke the plate and spilt the beans,
my father stepping out of his truck with my first dog,
and my mother crying behind me.
I was eating lunch from the edge of a hospital bed.
My dad said once, “You probably don’t remember,
but you almost died from pneumonia when you were a baby.”
I heard a monk speak on death as a slow process
of sense draining from you, followed by clarity.
Might I have begun the process,
of sensory drain
and death as a child in the hospital?
I see my parents’ deaths. My fear
of losing them is the same that tore me from my bed
as a child. My tears have not changed.
The unnamed closebehind:
my birth and death
surrounding me.
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