Night Terrors

Just a poem about the nighttime.

I lay down, and withered gray fingers crawled out of the darkness. "Right on schedule," I whispered.

Little black flowers sprouted along the dead hands. My eyes were heavy.

I was so tired.

The personless fingertips fingerkissed my pale skin and I shivered away from them,
drawing my blue patterned blanket tighter around me as I lay on my unbunked bunk bed. 

It was so cold.

The inky sky lingered, sucking away the light of the earth like a parasite.
Ugly stars stared at me, pointing and whispering to each other, "That's her."

It was a long night.

Chased by cruel nightmares and wicked thoughts, never relenting, always waiting for the next dream,
I watched the clock on the wall, witnessed the minute hand's crippled crawl.
"Oh, hello, dawn. It's good to see you again."

Author's Note

Adapted from RANSOM for an English project (needed a free verse, twelve line narrative poem including assonance, alliteration, poetic words, a simile, and a metaphor).

Reviews

[Patrick Henry]

I was, actually, nervous about reading this. Two things freak me out and I am not to sure anyone knows this of me, but writing about little kids passing away, and night terrors freak the heck out of me!! I had night terrors for years "Oh! one person knows on my friend list"....and the terrors would haunt my day as much as my night, so reading about the dark getting sucked away as the ever-present insomnia washes over me one more night, was and is very close to that sordid feeling of helplessness!! I had to remove all the clocks in my room, "sleep" with headphones on, and keep my bed by the bedroom window where my scratch marks littered the sill. I Love your poem, and especially the last lines until you get to the last one, and it's "Hey, we made it!" lol That was awesome for me. You had me holding my breath.... I'm so corny, perhaps, but I've written some pretty freaky stuff and what you have written is what REALLY gets my heart pumpin'. : ) xoxo -Mark

[Alvin L. Kathembe]

Hauntingly vivid...very well written!

[freelancejouster]

i love this. the rhythms and descriptions and lilt of this all, just lovely in a creepy sort of awful way.