From Chaos to Dream

An early call, light screaming through the window,

and she rose with a stretch and hushed the air.

'Not another word' said she, 'I'm not in the mood,'

but the sunlight refused to be fair.

She searched for the phone, somewhere in that pit

of clothing and tissue that once was warm,

and found it among her dusty red jacket, inspecting

the screen with a frown about to form.

'Today is the day,' read a note, black against the blue,

'Today is the day, you know now that a week

is all the world needs to fulfil it's dream.'

'What dream,' wondered she, 'the world is meek,

and a dream would mean purpose to chaos.'

She left that note to sit on the stove, smoldering,

hoping to ignore the skin-tight message it displayed.

'What's wrong, you're vacant,' her mother said,

'You've got bruises all over your face, conveyed

and broken like a lifeless dog.'

She shook her head--how could her mother,

so unknowing and innocent to what she knew,

be saved from what she was about to tell her?

'It's about the world, such an aquarium of a place,'

said she who knew their fate. 'I can't know,

there's some sort of fear people live in from Hell

and I have my own fiery forest in which to go.'

Her mother, mistaken, left her to tend her own wounds.

On Tuesday, day two, she went out to school and found them.

Her friends, taking word for null, played hookey in gym

to go home with their partners--she knew that was best,

for only five days left, she didn't chide and let them swim.

'What better way than let them be, they should not need

to know of the horror that awaits,' thought she, 'With innocence

I will let them live, live for the life they squander.'

And yet, as she watched their animal growls, recompence

enthralled and goaded her to act similarly doglike.

A boy of eighteen, he was a hound when hunting,

and sniffed her out like a duck in the weeds.

'I see you're troubled,' said he, words floating,

'Sure, you found out' said she. 'And so are you, I see.'

When she awoke, he had her tight in a warm nook,

and for a moment she forgot the torturous world outside.

But then, as he stirred and breathed sense against her spine

she was chilled with the shadow of Hell's fireside.

'Good morning, my love,' said he sweet and new,

'What bothers you? I am someone to open and talk at.'

'It's nothing, really,' said she unsurely, 'it's just

that something is creeping up and at me once spat.'

Of course he couldn't know, that would be foolish

like a sheep that would wander into a forest of wolves

and hope they had dull noses to escape them,

all without knowing it's sheepskin were cloves,

So she kept the second shadow away from him.

He called her, day two of their rendezvous,

and asked for her name, if she so had one to give.

'I tell you now, boy, that unless you want me again,

I am an uncaged bird that away from you will live,

and run from my fears to hide and keep myself

safe from the shadows that will follow you,

should you choose to follow me too. I hope that you,

by asking myself my name, with give yours too,

so I have someone to blame when the shadows take me.'

He laughed and said his name was Lez, for real,

no joking or lies weaved into this fateful encounter.

'In that case, Lez, you are a pup in dasies, I feel,

so I will tell you that never again ask about the shadow

that follows me streetwise and privately, I am Mel.

And so he didn't, but he did see her tense

with every second that ticked from the clock,

her shoulders would shift and shudder with fear

as though the ticks were her long-dead flock.

He wondered why she had two shadows, saw,

on the ground where she trod, four footsteps,

and the way she would rise and talk to the sun,

asking for it to keep shining, shut up, kept

from settling on his bed or the sil.

'Mel,' said he, 'you know I am here, in emergency

and pain, although you asked me not to ask,

so I won't.' 'Good,' she quipped, 'and though tendency,

do not ask me why my footsteps and shadows double.'

The final day she awoke like she had, under blanket

of soft fur and Lez, just stirring, with a small smile.

'Today it will happen,' said she, her fear flying

from her heart and her shadow laughing from it's guile.

She dug for her phone in the red dusty coat,

looked out the window to the eastern rain-filled sky,

but the message was gone, instead replaced,

a mean-faced boar harked her with Lez not to lie,

and as she turned to him, he saw the outside,

his look understood her weeklong fear, truly a beast

that was her shadow, stalking her, and he met her gaze,

'This is it,' said he, 'I see them, how they will feast.'

Rain became lightning and the world turned to dream.