” Every poem has a soul, the soul of the person who wrote it and the soul of those who read it and dream about it.” – dlmchale

My sleep is bathed in fearful sweat; each night a
pitched battle between all that I’ve loved and all
that I’ve lost.

My dreams betray me. Treasonous vignettes spinning
through the night like mismatched pieces of a puzzle:
no matter how desperately I press one vision into another,
it will not lock and the picture remains incoherent.

When morning breaks, I arise once more into the cool,
grey fog of isolation. Cold and shivering, aching and
empty. Unfocused and confused, eyes pasted shut with
broken sleep and a mouth of stale cotton.
.
Each day is spent in a stumbling stupor of regret and
indecision. Like a bird on broken wings, my thoughts fall
dangerously about me. I am tired and disillusioned. I am
conscious but cannot see. I exist in a pale light descending
and tomorrow’s hope is a dark and distant star.