pleading with a nightmare is like politely asking the bubonic plague to leave
through the front door;
it's simply not within its nature,
it permeates and deepens and makes mincemeat out of marrow,
until the nightmare becomes a reality
that stays with you wherever you go,
a little memento
to remember,
like a piece of chewing gum stuck to the side of your head
to cover up a bullet hole leaking all over the desk
i don’t remember the exact day we met,
but that’s a lie,
because i have the moment ingrained into my head,
playing on a loop on the hook of my hippocampus,
that sounds a lot campier than it actually is,
because i assume that my memory of you is probably false,
or at least distorted,
like the fraying edges of a daguerreotype
that survived a coupe of house fires
and that one time an ogre wandered into the backyard
and mistook the memory of you as something edible
before realizing that this wasn’t a fantasy world,
and the reliance of mythological creatures
isn’t helpful when trying
to pinpoint reality with perception
scavenging through a hunt of boars and pixes
flying through the dream catcher with disturbed thoughts
and fantasies picturing everything naked and dumb
and raw
Fred Aiken Writing 