My sound sleep is suddenly stolen
as I’m violently shocked awake
by a screeching source of confusion,
shattering the crystalline visions
of a peaceful paradisiacal dreamscape
where I had been safely stationed in hiding
as I sought the faceless beauty
of an unknown angel
from the other side
who could possibly fall
from the graceful arms of heaven
and save my sinful soul
from this dualistic rift
that constantly creates a schism
between the warring hemispheres
in the back of my brain.

Now the maddening echoes of the chaos fields
reverberate with pulses of white lightning
through the closing circle
of my slashed consciousness,
corrupting the cycle of dreams
and disrupting the circadian rhythms of my rest
while rupturing my spirit
with a knife to the side of my psyche
as the Judas Goat offers a final betrayal
and ushers me unceremoniously
back to the here and now of this broken reality.

A silent crash whistles through the window,
singeing the humid night air with an ominous warning
whispered from the trickster gods of this perilous world,
painfully piercing the tortured memories of a thousand almosts
and a million not quites
that still linger in the spaces of blacked out truth
that I refuse to face head on;
and so I cover my head and cower in bed,
tossing and turning as the lies
sing their circus song of despair,
waiting for the blissful release of sleep
to once again wash over
and return me to the realm
where all such concerns simply melt away
and vanish
as swirling abstractions
of a life forgotten
on the far side of the looking glass.

This piece was written as a response to multiple Twitter prompts which I’ve been having fun with for the past couple of weeks now.

Many thanks to all the hosts at these fine challenges (#MadVerse, #ashverse, #ntitle, #ShapePoetry, #ThePaths, and #POETHEME), as well as the many others who I’ve been writing with of late.

Selah,

Scott Thomas Outlar