Cold stark black and white and absent of any gray
The edges are no longer blurred and I am as cold as death
What I wouldn’t do to feel warm again, to feel safe?

My dreams are full of images, too fast to catch hold of
Painful flashes of unfocused memory, police lights on the blackest of nights
In my chest a frightened bird, trapped, trying to tear me from my sleepless sleep

A clenched hand is reflected in the angry mirror of the monster’s eye
Slowly drifting toward me
I am made of ice
Contact jars and turns, twisting the world around me
Sluggish blood pours from cracked lips as he kisses me with his fist
A tattoo that can never be erased
The air trembles as I drown one last time

This is not love
The thought comes too late
This is not love

A pastel pink sun on the pavement
Outside my window
A young girl skipping rope on the sidewalk
Her feet beat out a message on the cracked concrete
Like a hammer, over and over and over
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up

Just like that, it stops.

The room is awash in soft moonlight
Crumpled sheets spill to the floor as the echo of my scream fades
I am sleeping beauty and she my one true knight
Eclipsing heaven’s stars, challenging the most perfect rose
On this, the first day of spring
Her kiss the color of love, her scent of mistletoe on Christmas Eve
Her touch, oh if I only had words to describe the heat
That fills me, her hands upon my breasts
Both tender and cruel
Her mouth upon my mine, the imprint of her lips a tattoo
That can never be erased
As she shakes me gently
Wake up, love, Wake up. Wake up.
And I do, knowing that this is the dream
And that I am awake.