A Dream's Clutch (Poem - Shadow Series Parts I & II)

When dreams come to me they arrive in vivid swirls I cannot forget and invariably find their way onto my pages of thoughts gambling for a bit of sanity. At times they're nightmares and force conversations out of me as if I'm extolling a host of demons to let me go, other times they're flavoured like the honey of a girl giddy with wetness and desire. This time my dreams veered off the road regularly taken, and took me to a land where hammers and walls attack the inside of my mind, and introduced me to my shadow-self, a terrifying umbra that has peppered itself into my deepest evenings. Read, and enter my sleeping world.

--

The muted frenzy of heavy hammers awakened me

late in the afternoon.

Startled, I took a frantic look out my window and gasped in horror.

Uncounted miles of men,

unbroken, unwavering lines and lines of men

chanted in unison:

"We build! We Break! We Build! We Break!"

a roar shaking the very windowsill of my vision,

a roar unnerving in its uniform nature,

a roar accompanying the din of walls being erected in endless miles,

myriads of miles where stone met stone.

and ascended to terrifying heights.

Stone five feet thick,

forcing furrows into the ground with their granite bases.

Stumbling out of my door,

shirtless, breathless, chest heaving in panic,

I ran to the first of these walls,

screaming at the men to stop,

to knock down the walls soaring skywards with their unflinching mallets.

As one, they roared in answer:

"We Build! We Break! We Build! We Break!"

I shivered at this unnatural chant, these men with their backs to me,

corded shoulder muscles lending strength to that which they built

with ever-increasing speed

a dizzying process rushing upwards

the momentum of a hundred horizons shrouded from sun.

Sobbing with fear, I shook one of the workers,

"What are you doing?!" a strangled sound from cracked lips.

The man turned, and I saw only two lidless eyes and a mouth like an un-stitched scar,

Like an eagle in pain he screamed: "I Build! I Break! I Build! I Break!"

His arm a machine unto itself

rising and falling like my heartbeat,

hammering my wings to the tender earth.

I fell to the ground, suddenly realizing I was trapped,

smothered in my unconscious,

scrabbling for fresh morning frost with trembling hands

wild eyes, darting like dragonflies for anything familiar.

Above me,

I saw my former self mouthing a silent yell for me to awaken,

to free myself,

to stop shaking under a dream's clutch.

Part II

I awoke to a blood-orange morning,

where all around me specialists sang songs to cure me.

Below the surface, the men simmered in the sun.

I could hear the clangs of their hammers,

even after clapping my hands to ears.

My former self had receded to the sliver of shadow left in my room,

and stood there sneering.

I tried lifting my shirt to wipe the sweat off from beneath my eyes,

yet discovered there was none.

I saw my shirt, discarded, lifeless like a dead animal,

two inches from where my shadowself stood,

frighteningly long nails clacking a steady tempo on my white walls.

Its sneer turned to a deadly glee when it saw me quail under its gaze.

Scrambling towards my door,

I wrenched the knob in a half-circle,

and flung myself into a locked door.

Laughter like a hiss rose up through my back and entered the base of my neck,

laughter like a turbid cloud filmed over my eyes,

and peaks of terror  like jagged teeth rose up in my throat

as I turned and stared into my faceless companion,

centuries-old scorn swirling around its featureless form in an icy mist.

I pressed so hard against the door I felt splinters split skin

and screamed from somewhere primal,

somewhere lost and aching for love,

a terrified howl that brought lines and lines of lidless men rushing

and crashing against the inside of my skull.

I clasped my head with my hands, racked with nightmarish pain

as my eyes opened involuntarily,

and stared at my former self retreating and lashing out in horror,

one of its filthy nails piercing my neck,

clawing and swinging

at the mind-men of my dream marching of out my pupils,

furious, rage-filled men with mouths like un-stitched scars

filling my daymare with screams:

"We Attack! We Banish! We Attack! We Banish!"

Crowded, cramped, they swayed out of my eyes like a pounding heart

jostling out of me,

the tips of their hammers gleaming viciously

through icy mist dripping in unknown fear.

I collapsed into a hallway

fingers against my neck where rivulets of red sprung,

as a door previously locked swung quietly shut,

muffling strangled sounds from within.