How do you sleep at the end
of the day when there’s no strength
left to fight with yourself?
When the battle never ends
and the winner blows
out the window like a sheer, lace curtain?
How do you dream? I dream hanging
from a rope gasping in spasms.
I dream jerking on a gallows pole pursuing
the broken heart of the God forsaken bloody lamb.
How do you do when you wake?
I purge that little slice of slumber,
that salty splinter of naughty night,
ever so slowly, wondering how my skin
is still on my bones. I shiver and sluice the dark
down a hairy, yawning drain. I gingerly
touch at my throat with clammy
fingertips frowning.
I grapple to remember and grovel to forget.
I look in the naked mirror and think,
what the hell has gotten into me?

*Shadow Feast; October 1998 *San Francisco Salvo; November 1998 *Mind Fire Poetry Journal, Vol. 2, Iss. #12; December 1998 *Realm Whispers, Vol. 1, 3rd Edition; January 1999

© Getty & Fey.